In this episode, Tamsin speaks with Matt Anson about daily habits, journaling and appreciative inquiry to help to keep you on the right track with your mental health and well being.
Matt Anson is a leadership coach, originally from Sheffield but now based in Ireland. He felt a calling into coaching after he himself learned about, and used, tools and techniques such as a daily routine and journaling. These enabled him to learn to live with imposter syndrome and to overcome anxiety to achieve a number of life goals and dreams, such as launching his own business and writing a book which got picked up for publishing.
my website - www.mattanson.com
to book time with me directly to discuss coaching - https://calendly.com/mattanson/general
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Tamsin is a Chartered Financial Planner with over 20 years experience. She works with couples and individuals who are at the end of a relationship and want agree how to divide their assets FAIRLY without a fight.
You can contact Tamsin at tamsin@smartdivorce.co.uk or arrange a free initial meeting using https://calendly.com/tamsin-caine/15min. She is also part of the team running Facebook group Separation, Divorce and Dissolution UK
Tamsin Caine MSc., FPFS
Chartered Financial Planner
Smart Divorce Ltd
https://smartdivorce.co.uk
P.S. I am the co-author of “My Divorce Handbook – It’s What You Do Next That Counts”, written by divorce specialists and lawyers writing about their area of expertise to help walk you through the divorce process. You can buy it by scanning the QR code…
Transcript
(The transcript has been created by an AI, apologies for any mistakes)
Tamsin Caine 0:06
Hello, and welcome to the Smart Divorce podcast. In series five, my guests will be helping you to come out of your divorce, dissolution, or big breakup and create a different you move forward with the things that you want to be able to achieve and think about things differently. I really hope you enjoy this series. I'm your host, Tamsin Caine. And we'll be meeting some fabulous guests. I hope you enjoy them. If you do have any suggestions as to for the guests that we could have on then we'd be more than delighted to hear from you. I hope you enjoy! Hello, and today, I'm delighted to be joined by Matt Anson. Matt is a really old friend of mine. I'm not saying he's really old, but a very, very long time. So I'm really happy that he's agreed to join us today. So Matt is a leadership coach, originally from Sheffield, although he's currently living in Ireland and has been forever but hasn't lost the Scottish accent yet. Sorry, Sheffield, that he felt calling into coaching after himself learned about and used tools and techniques such as daily routine and journaling. These enabled him to learn to live without impostor syndrome. I'm not sure how that works. So I'm looking forward to finding out about that. And to overcome that anxiety to achieve number of life goals and gee dreams, such as launching his own business and writing a book, which got picked up for publishing. This is all amazing. I'm so excited about our conversation today. Matt, thank you for joining us.
Matt Anson 1:47
Thanks for having me on.
Tamsin Caine 1:49
No worries. So I guess where do we start? I don't even know. But let's let's, let's jump straight in. So we've talked a bit about daily routines and journalist journaling to help overcome various things anxiety, and you know, being one of them. Where do we start?
Matt Anson 2:14
Where do we start? A very good question, I suppose. I'll tell you about to my my journey. And my discovery of, of this. You mentioned that the imposter syndrome and the anxiety. If I can turn the clock back 10 years or so I was probably one of the a huge victim of imposter syndrome or who suffer from impostor syndrome. And that fed into anxiety. And around 10 years ago, I was going through a period where I wasn't sleeping at night, everything was causing me anxiety. I'd wake up at 2am in the morning, and that would be that would be me awake for the night, mulling over pretty much everything. And being unable to get back to sleep. I was in a management a leadership role, a fairly senior role in the company I was working in. But I never quite felt that I should be there. I felt that I've kind of fallen into both the sales profession and then into into leadership. And I felt I need to do something about this, I need to I need to make a change here. And I happen to be as you're travelling over to the UK from Germany on a business trip. And I saw a book on the shelf called What's stopping you why smart people don't always succeed.
Tamsin Caine 3:39
I like it!
Matt Anson 3:40
And the title jumped out to me. And that was kind of the start of the journey. That was the first of many books I then read around. Overcoming impostor syndrome, daily journaling morning routines, I picked up along the way. As you said in the introduction, I then want to give give a bit of this bike because what I've learned is made such a difference to my life. And you listed a few of the achievements I made there that I wanted to give some back and that's where I decided to take the take the journey into coaching. Start my own coaching business which I left my full time employment last November to launch this business. And as you say other things that I've achieved along the way which I always wanted to do like writing the book. I mean, the book isn't, isn't around anything like this. The book is actually around my football team. Amd you know, I'm a football obsessive, but
Tamsin Caine 4:40
we're not getting into that, but
Matt Anson 4:43
but it was always a goal of mine. And I'm a keen runner, and it was always a goal of mine to run a marathon but I was always telling myself, I'll never run a marathon. And you know what I've done too since I've run two since that and it's overcoming that mental block. Walk on those mental blocks and that voice in your head saying that you can't do this, you can't achieve this.
Tamsin Caine 5:05
Absolutely. And I think it's certainly for our listeners that wanting to achieve things and feeling confident in and, and having the guts to start doing things is it's something that it's almost stamped out of you during the divorce process because it's, it's an incredibly emotional process. It's it's damn hard, even the easiest, even the ones that go through straightforwardly and amicably don't require the court. It's still really, really hard work. And I think you've come out of it feeling battered and bruised. And I think the reason that I wanted to have this conversation with you today was to give people some kind of ideas, some starting points as to how to start giving themselves some confidence building up some resilience. And then oh, these are words that we hear all the time that may or may have stopped in any meetings, people but but also to, to kind of work out why these daily habits are important and the difference they can make. And I'm gonna start with one that really freaks me out because it's, it's one that apparently high performing individuals have this. I think it's I think it's called the 5am Club, where you kind of get up at ridiculous o'clock in the morning, to start your day kind of before everybody else has started. So. So some thoughts on that as a plan.
Matt Anson 6:40
Failure. I have heard of the 5am Club and one of the one of those books that I picked up a book called the Miracle Morning book called the Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod, and, yeah, that's all around getting up early. Do you know what and I touched on sleep there previously on when I was struggling, getting a good night's sleep is probably more important than anything else, if you can. So it's 5am or 9am. Everybody has a difference, often has different circadian rhythms. Everybody has a basic energy and rest cycle that is different to everybody else. So 5pm may work for some people. But other people may find that the journaling is best done at night, or that they do their best getting rested, going midnight to 8am and doing the routine at 8am. Now, I would say that the routine is best done in the morning, because it starts it starts things afresh, it's a way of resetting before the day. But there's no harm during journaling lasting at night just to kind of get those thoughts out on paper and clear the mind so that you can get some rest. But certainly the I don't agree that the 5am is a golden, hard and fast rule that people need to stick to
Tamsin Caine 7:58
God. Right? I'm happy with that. Because 5am is bound to at least for my liking. So So you've talked about the routine. So So talk me through the routine.
Matt Anson 8:13
The book, I mentioned, how Elrod he has a routine in Agra, he calls the savers. It's an acronym. I started with that. But I developed my own. And I think just just to make it memorable, I came up with my own acronym that overtime work for me and my acronym is actually orgasm. Because it's memorable. It sticks in my mind. Nobody, nobody forgets it. This breaks down and it just happened to you know what I was just trying to find a an acronym that work that fitted and it just happened to fit. I knew I wouldn't forget it. So, so the first The O stands for organised so the first thing I do when I start my routine is have a look at the day ahead. I don't switch the email and I avoid looking at email I avoid looking at WhatsApp text messages, etc. All I look at is my calendar. And my To Do lists I use an app called Todoist with my to do list and just just make a note of what I got in the day, how much time how many gaps do I have in the calendar? Do I have gaps in the calendar to begin with? And okay, what do I need to do today? The second is that this is this is what I was trying to segue. So recording which is the journaling because I couldn't fit the J into the acronym j into the acronym. And that's kind of really, I would say one of the two most important parts of this is the journaling. First thing I do when I'm journaling is my coaching is based on principle of appreciative inquiry, which is all around looking at looking back at what works. So focus on what works focusing on strengths, forgetting what doesn't work. So talking to you all listeners who've just been through that traumatic time is looked back at okay, what what did work? What's worked for me as a parent? What's What did work in the marriage? What did work during the divorce process? But where have I come out stronger? Not what was the bad time what didn't work where where was the head, it's where was the posit was the positive stuff. And doing that on a daily basis and just looking back at the previous day, and listing everything you achieved on the previous day, it's a, it's a great way to start the day. And force yourself to write so force yourself to write for maybe 30 seconds a minute. Because it's amazing how many things you get done in a day that you forget about. And it could be I put the washing on, or I took the dog for a walk? It doesn't have to be the big ticket items. Yeah, because if Did I did I fill the 24 hour the 16 hours I was awake with with useful stuff that's going to move me forward, it's going to get things done. And you'll find you'll have a big long list then of this is everything I got done and you'll feel already feel better. Yeah. And then it's, then my journaling is really, I have a set of questions, and I'll put them up on on my website, and I'll share the link with you on the website. I asked a different question of myself every day of the month. So if it's the first of the month, I have a set question. So that and they're all questions that I've used on use with clients. But I asked myself those coaching questions. Okay. And if there's a natural progression to the question, so one, day one, day two follows day one, etc, etc. But there's a natural flow throughout the month of what do I want to achieve this month? And then how am I getting on with with those goals by the end of the month is reflecting back on the end of the month. So today is the 31st. As we're recording, it's looking back to say, Okay, what did I get done in May? did I achieve everything I set out to do on the first? But again, looking at it from a a positive mindset of Yes, I did. I did. This is what I started to do. Okay, I didn't do this. But this is what I learned from not being able to do that, or this is why I didn't do it in a positive way.
Tamsin Caine 12:23
Yeah. So steps forward towards the things that you while I might not have actually got to the result that I hoped for, but at least I've taken some steps forward or decided that wasn't a ..You know, that's me right now. Yeah.
Matt Anson 12:39
Oh, another question in there is what have I learned? So what did I learn from not doing that? What did I learn from maybe not succeeding in the way I wanted to?
Tamsin Caine 12:49
Yeah, okay.
Matt Anson 12:51
And then we move on. Similar, it's still part of journaling, because I still write down it's the the G is gratitude. So I always find five things and try to do different things every day, five things that I'm grateful for. And it could be okay, I got a nice cup of coffee. Where did the coffee come from? But there's certainly a mental benefit to, to, to looking at gratitude and to a gratitude journal.
Tamsin Caine 13:18
Yeah, absolutely agree. I used to do. I didn't manage five, I think I was doing three a day. I did that for quite a long time. But I was doing it last thing at night before I went to before I went to bed, and actually, it's quite helps you calm the mind put you in a positive space of sleep, which I found, it was something that I preferred to do last thing at night to do it first thing in the morning and massively have helped my own anxiety. And it's something I've taught to the members of my family. And they found it in a positive direction from that as well. I think like seeing the positive surround you in being and being grateful for the good stuff that's around you. Like, I'm sure there's something about neural pathways that somebody will tell me focus the mind on the good stuff that's going on rather than than the negative stuff. You know, certainly when you've been through divorces and a lot of negativity around even if you're feeling positive about the future, it's still you know, it's a difficult time and I think if you can each day just focus on the good stuff, even when you have the hardest days. It's certainly a good thing today.
Matt Anson 14:37
Yeah, absolutely. That the reason I went for I was doing three I just didn't found I found I was I wasn't going to take it as seriously as I should. And I wasn't. I was kind of skirting over it so I forced myself to find five but again it's it's about work. So if the end of the evening works, that's great. So this is my routine, but it's about what works for whoever is doing it.
Tamsin Caine 15:09
Yeah. Okay, what are we on next
Matt Anson 15:13
to it as affirmations. Now, again, going back to the original, the how our affirmations. There's a lot of stuff written about affirmations, and you mentioned your neural pathways there. I'm a keen follower every I call them Martin Seligman. He's written lots of books on on optimism. And he, he's a big proponent of appreciative inquiry that I've spoken, I've already spoken around. He's also the chair of the American Psycho Psychological Association. And part of that and one of his opinions is the whole affirmations thing. Doesn't work in the way that you hear a lot of the kind of the Tony Robbins, talk around, tell yourself you're great. Tell yourself you're the greatest football player on Earth, and you'll become the football player on Earth. greatest football player on earth. He Seligman debunks that.
Tamsin Caine 16:15
What's he called again? Sorry,
Matt Anson 16:16
Martin Martin Seligman
Tamsin Caine 16:18
How do you spell that?
Matt Anson 16:20
s e l i gmam.
Tamsin Caine 16:24
Okay. So, yeah, ya know, he's written a series of books around learned optimism and teaching yourself to be more optimistic. Okay. Yeah, they're really good. And he's also done one around. And one of the reasons I got into this was with my daughter was having a little bit of a negative period and a life. And there's a lot of work in there around learned optimism for children helping children to become more optimistic. And it's been, it's been great for her.
Fantastic. So what are affirmations? So we're not? We're not saying I am the world's greatest footballer.
Matt Anson 17:09
So what I say is really, it's more of a even though I use the word affirmations, it's more of a reminder. So it's more of a reminder, like I say, things like back to back myself more or believing myself more, rather than I am trying to predict something, it's, it's more a reminder, we will want one of mine is focused on the task at hand. Because I'm very, I'm very easily distracted by the next shiny thing that comes in. So I tell myself every morning focused on the task at hand. And then when I find myself getting distracted, it pops into my brain. Okay? Rather than it be, I'm the greatest, I'm going to be the greatest coach, or I'm going to earn a million, million euro million pounds in the next year. It's more kind of in the moment. Okay.
Tamsin Caine 17:58
And is this something you tell yourself the set number of times in the morning when you are brushing your teeth or whatever? Or is it something you've got written on mirrors, you know, what's the how do you fulfil the affirmation
Matt Anson 18:13
I just repeat, repeat it to myself. So as part of this routine, the routine that I have, is essentially sitting down the first thing I do in the morning, the Organising recording gratitudes the affirmation all of this is done within a 30 minute period. So I, I have the affirmations written down in front of my journal, I changed them from time to time if I need if I need to. And because I've got my journal there, I can just tend to from and I read them to myself, I repeat them three times. And I'd say that's, that's that step of my routine done. Okay. The next part is the S is study. So I read, I don't try to read 10 pages or 10 Chapter, potentially, or a chapter depending, which is if a short chapters, I go for 10 pages of a book that it's going to usually a business book, or it could be a psychology book, but something that's going to help me move forward something that's nonfiction, that's going to going to help me move forward. And then the last part is meditate. So I use an app called calm. You may be familiar with this headspace as well as the loadout that i i used to use headspace I now use calm, I prefer calm, but other apps are available. So yeah, that's how I round off the morning routine is that meditation
Tamsin Caine 19:37
Alright. So how did you learn to meditate because an app is all well and good. But it's not. It's not that straightforward meditating, is it?
Matt Anson 19:48
No, one technique that I was taught was that you may have heard of the Wim Hof Method,
Tamsin Caine 19:55
which is getting in cold water, isn't it?
Matt Anson 19:58
No, there's a pretty good is part of that but it's more. It's breathing in. So it's counting in for breathing in holding, breathing out, holding. So basically that box breathe in your belly breathe in 5555 If you can get into the ability to do that, then then start using something like calm. I do find tomorrow let me leave it on calm is a very good meditation teacher. If you if you're starting out it's a great place to start but then progress on to box breathing and Wim Hof, Wim Hof, etc. Okay, but even if you only ever use calm, it's better than nothing. It's still
Tamsin Caine 20:46
so is it? Let's let's kind of dig into this a little bit. Is it? Are we talking about? Because I know when I've heard about meditation, it's about emptying your mind. And my mind when it starts being empty, we'll have viscious thoughts, not viscious necessarily. But well, like there'll be thoughts coming in from, like, why haven't you put washing on what have you got to do tonight? You know, all the nonsense that fills our brains. It's very difficult to actually empty your brain and to know thoughts to come in, into.
Matt Anson 21:23
It's impossible that you're doing. It's impossible. And the idea, the idea of meditation. The idea, the reason I do meditation anyway, is it goes back to that focus piece of it's the mindfulness, it's concentrating on the now. The mind wants to be busy. So if you are closing your eyes, and whether you're listening to music, or just breathing and thought pops in, it's very easy to berate yourself and say, No, I'm supposed to have an empty mind. That that defeats the purpose of meditation. Meditation is around if a thought pops into your mind, notice Oh, there's a thought I'll I always kind of picture them as little balloons coming in. So little blown comes in to say you need to take the dog for a walk, or you need to put the washing on Excuse me. Let the let the balloon floats or push it push it away gently. But be kind to yourself while you're doing it. Don't think I shouldn't be I should have an empty mind. I shouldn't be thinking anything. Because it's completely it's, it's completely irrelevant. Right? You cannot you cannot clear your mind and thoughts because your brain is busy while you're awake. Your brain is busy. We have something like 60,000 thoughts a day. So you can completely empty your mind. So give yourself grace, you're there to relax you there too. I was thinking of it. It's kind of cleansing the palate before the day begins. Then it's like okay, well I'm just gonna focus on the now and then we're gonna get stuck in. So if a thought pops into your mind you think do I really need to do that straight after this? Fine push it to one side and when you finish the meditation go for it. The key is, I suppose not to follow the thought. And that's anybody who suffers from anxiety will know that's that's where it's going down that rabbit hole of follow up following the thought down and it keeping you awake or it distracting you from whatever you're supposed to be doing.
Tamsin Caine 23:22
No, absolutely. So your routine is what we've talked about. It's a morning thing. So so from the organised bed it sounds like this is from the point at which you're sat at your desk beginning work. Doesn't sound like it's morning routine that's like get straight out of bed and that's me which you know I've heard some morning routines it's like right first thing you do is drink a glass of water you don't touch your phone for X amount of time. You then have a cold shower. Can't think of the other things but various different things that are that are literally kick in the second you again as they bounce out of bed but if it five o'clock in the morning probably won't but so he said so talk to me about the timing of it.
Matt Anson 24:16
The reason it works for me and again I'm this is it's about what works for everybody. The reason it works for me is my my recipe cycle my circadian rhythm is 6.30 / 7 o'clock start is as early as I want to get. Yeah, I have to get the kids ready for school. I'm going to take the dog out. So it depends on the day. Kids if I don't have to get the kids ready for school i i do hi I have that cold shower and come straight in the office. Usually I will get it done before I take the kids go so I'll get the kids ready. While they're sitting down having their breakfast I'll then come up to the office and do the routine. Okay, so it's about what it's about making it work for you. It's it's around Again, it goes back to what we were saying there about the Medici meditating, meditating, it's about giving yourself grace and permission. You know, the idea isn't to be hard, too hard on yourself to say I must be up at 5am and do this, it's, I must get this done. And sometimes, I find, after the if I've done the school run, after the school run is the best time to do it. Because I've got the blood pumping , we walked to school with the dog, the Bloods, as the bloods already flowing, and then I get stuck into this, and then I get on with my day. Again, that's why I start with the Oh, it's let's get organised. If I don't have time to do this, and commit to this properly, I'll come back, I'll come back to it later. But the key is for me, that I don't start looking at work stuff, until I've got this done. And then I find I'm much more effective.
Tamsin Caine 25:50
Okay, so it's not, I mean, I guess even if you're doing these things at night, if that's what works for you, it is just about getting getting these things in, in as good a routine as you can. And you know, and not beating yourself up if something comes in, you know, drives a juggernaut over when you're supposed to be doing it and what you're supposed to be doing, you know, because because life sometimes happens just that.
Matt Anson 26:19
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you don't, okay, I keep using the phrase, but give yourself grace. It's not meditation or routine, it's not around, beating yourself up, if you don't do it, it's around making yourself more resilient, more confident, more positive. Yeah. So if you find that you're beating yourself up for not doing it 5am, or beating yourself up for missing one of the steps because you, as you say, life happens, and you didn't get to do it. So be it, you'll get back to it tomorrow. Or even if you do need to do a shortened version of it, that you maybe pick one or two and do Okay, today, I always make sure that I do the meditation and the journaling. For me, there are two key parts. So if I missed the gratitude, or miss the affirmations, so be it. But certainly doing the journaling and meditation. If I don't do them, that's when I can feel myself later in the day becoming more anxious. That's when they can have the voice. The little demon on my shoulder starts talking into my ear and saying you're gonna fail. You're not. Here's here's a negative thoughts coming in.
Tamsin Caine 27:29
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And when we started this conversation, you talked about journaling at night to empty the thoughts, get the thoughts in your head down onto paper, expands a little bit on that.
Matt Anson 27:45
Yeah, that's actually something I'd gotten that got out of the habit of doing. But it's certainly something I used to do. And that, again, particularly if I find when I was finding myself having those sleepless nights, it is a question of like, what what do you want to think of what what's going on in the head. A lot of the time, I would do kind of free freehand writing, where I just kind of train of thought writing almost, I just wrote down whatever was in my mind, it didn't matter if it was nonsense. Just to get it out of my mind onto paper, so goes back to the clearing the mind and take a lot of cleansing breaths and try and get to sleep. Because if you don't get them out in the paper, then they're still in there. And they're still going to be churning around while you're asleep.
Tamsin Caine 28:34
So try and trying to break down what's there and work through it on on a piece of paper almost, rather than dealing trying to deal with it in your head. Yeah,
Matt Anson 28:45
I suppose the idea is to try and move it goes back to those balloons when you're meditating that the speaker is trying to move those thoughts onto a paper, close the book. Okay, I'll come back to the morning. I'll come back to that in the morning routine if I need to when I'm doing the journaling. But now the important thing is I need to sleep more and more and more studies and more and more science that I'm reading is increasing the the importance of sleep. It used to be the kind of Margaret Thatcher and people like that you say, oh yeah. Three or four hours of sleep, but I'm not saying this was a direct cause she ended up suffering from dementia. Whether that was a cause or not, I don't know. But certainly the studies are showing that there is a an impact on not getting enough sleep.
Tamsin Caine 29:37
Yeah, yeah. So it feels like a health requirement like drinking however much was eight glasses of water and having five portions of fruit or veg. It's one of those things, isn't it? That's that that's, you know, becoming, becoming built into us. You talk a bit about, about goals and about about the These processes help him with impostor syndrome, which almost feel like like work business related work related things, did these tools and techniques work for people who, for whom hasn't, you know, they're not goals that but but they're, they're in a position where they're feeling a lack of confidence because of things that have gone on in their life. They're feeling like they were mentioned resilience beginning but they just feel like they need to build themselves up again before they can even get to the point of goal setting.
Matt Anson 30:33
Absolutely. I mean, goal goal setting is great. If you know where you want to go. A lot of a lot of clients that I work with, come to me because they don't know where they want to go. They don't know what their goals are. When we say they could, in a few occasions, they've been through traumatic experiences, they may have lost their lost their job. And they've come to me because they don't know what to do next. And there is this big thing of having having goals, but it doesn't mean you have to have a goal. A perfect picture or an image of where you want your life to be in three, five years time. Is probably all you need. But it doesn't have to be specific. It doesn't have to be I want to live, I want to earn a million a million pounds in the next three years. It doesn't have to be that specific. It's okay, this is what I want. This is how I want to feel in three years time. I want to feel more free. I want to feel less anxious. That's a goal in itself.
Tamsin Caine 31:39
Yeah. I never thought about that. I was kind of thinking about kind of whether were the goals need to be realistic or not. But if you're if you're tapping into a into a feeling that you want to have, then that that kind of has to be realistic, doesn't it? Because you're kind of in charge of your own, of your own feelings to an extent, aren't you?
Matt Anson 32:05
Yeah, absolutely. And I suppose it's more of a vision and a goal. A goal, like you say they're very specific, very realistic. But a vision is I want to feel more in control, or I want to feel less anxious in a year from now. And it's still it's still reasonably tangible. If you look. And again, if you're doing the journaling and looking back and reflecting on the on the first of June 2020 to 2022, I set the goal that by the first of June 2023, I will be feeling less anxious, how do I feel now, when you do that journal reminder of putting a reminder in your calendar. Am I moving forward? And again, this is why journaling helps because it goes even if you're improving by 1% Every day, you may not notice it. But in 365 days, you'd be looking back and there's a huge, huge difference. A huge improvement.
Tamsin Caine 33:03
Yeah. And I think that's really important actually to look back at where, where we were and and recognise and acknowledge and give ourselves a pat, pat on the back for the for how far you have come. Even if it's not exactly where you wanted to be it you still will move forward by by following the steps.
Matt Anson 33:23
Yeah. It's a really important point you made that. You, if I look back at journals that I made four or five years ago, my goals a lot of my goals are for them are completely irrelevant. Now. Very different. Now. I wanted different things in life, life happens, life changes, and you kind of have to roll with that. If you get fixated on one goal. And then you achieve it and you're not feeling any better about yourself or about your life. It is a bit of a waste of time. We all we all want to be happier. We all want to feel more in control more happy. And if that goal doesn't get you there, then it's is it worth chasing in the first place?
Tamsin Caine 34:08
I've been listening to the high performance podcast with Jake Humphrey and professor. I can't remember his name.
Matt Anson 34:18
David clusterfuck is it
Tamsin Caine 34:21
It'll come back to me Dave Damon, Damon. And they were interviewing Jonny Wilkinson. So you know, as as you're aware, as a massive England rugby fan, He is my God. And he was talking about, you know, kind of reaching goals and actually is it's kind of a bit of a problem to actually get to the goal. Because if you get there you're a bit like, oh, what now? So what do I do now? Johnny scored the winning goal for England to win the 2003 Rugby World Cup. For those of you who don't follow For a bit just short explanation for you there, and you know that that would have been Johnny's childhood dream as a as a kid playing, playing rugby playing and 10. And kind of that would have been his aim to win the World Cup to score the winning points, you know, all the admiration that would have been around him at that time, and actually, to be fair throughout his his rugby career, but actually didn't have the effect of moving him forward, it actually helped the effective of making him feel depressed, like, because it's like, while I'm there, so what, what it's like, almost, it's not about reaching the goal, it's about the journey that you're on to take these steps forward. So it's, the goal itself, actually, in a way could be completely astronomical, something that you are never gonna to do. Because actually, and I'm sure when Johnny was a kid, he probably thought it was never ever going to school. But, you know, it is that thing about watch. So you want to make it something that you're never ever going to get to so that you keep pushing yourself on and keeping taking those steps forward, anyway.
Matt Anson 36:13
Yeah. Absolutely. And it also comes back to one of my affirmations is focused on the task at hand. Because that's part of that, like, focus on focus on today, focus on this moment, because that's all that matters, there and here, and now really is all that matters, because things will change. And you may set a goal for three years from now. But live life has changed. And if you do achieve that goal, what's next. Whereas if you constantly kind of just have a vision of I want to be happier, or I want to be less anxious. That's something that you can keep working towards, you can always be more happy, you can always be less anxious, less worried. Yeah. So keep working towards that instead. And if you feel that a goal is the goal that you're going for, is going to help you with that. And great, but don't be too, too kind of wed to the goal. Yeah. Because if you don't get it, then you you're going to measure yourself against that and put you're gonna have your worth against that. And if you do achieve it, then what's next? Yeah, so enjoy the journey.
Tamsin Caine 37:24
Oh, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Not we're coming to the end of our time together. Sadly. I just wondered if you had any final thoughts for for our listeners today that you wanted to get across before we finish up,
Matt Anson 37:44
I would say is try, particularly the journaling and meditation, if there are two things that you're not doing at the moment, I would strongly recommend them that they've had a huge impact on my life, and then anybody I work with who has, has done the same, the feedback has always been positive. So the rest of it is great. The rest of the morning routine is great. Try and get a morning or like you say an end of day routine into your life. And stick to it. Find what works for you. journaling and meditation. If you only take two things away from today, are those two things.
Tamsin Caine 38:18
Fantastic. Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. If anybody does want to get ahold of you work with you speak to you mind that the hell out of you. We will put links in in the show notes. But do you just want to give us a quick rundown as to where people can find you,
Matt Anson 38:36
you know, the best place to go is through my website www.mattanson.com. So ma TT ans o n.com. And you'll you'll find me on there. There's a way to book some time with me or drop me an email. That's the best place to find me. And it's very, because my kind of my coaching the issues around sales management. It's very sales management focused. But I have clients on across a variety of different different roles and different things that they're working on. So don't let the sales manager piece put you off if you're not a sales manager.
Tamsin Caine 39:12
Fantastic. That's brilliant. Matt, thank you so much for joining me. It's been brilliant to talk to you today.
Matt Anson 39:17
Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Tamsin Caine 39:23
I hope you enjoy the episode of the Smart Divorce podcast. If you would like to get in touch please have a look in the show notes for our details or go onto the website www.smartdivorce.co.uk. Also, if you are listening on Apple podcasts or on Spotify and you wouldn't mind leaving us a lovely five star review. That would be fantastic. I know that lots of our listeners are finding this is incredibly helpful in their journey through separation divorce and dissolving a civil partnership. Also, if you would like likes and foot further support. We do have Facebook group now. It's called separation divorce and dissolution UK. Please do go on to Facebook search up the group and we'd be delighted to have you join us. The one thing I would say is do please answer their membership questions. Okay, have a great day and take care
Transcribed by https://otter.ai