Jacqui Thomas » Jacqui’s Thoughts

Single and Want a Baby?

Jacqui — Mon, 10 May 2010 11:03:42 +0000

As a Mum who was a single parent from the very beginning, I’m often asked about the pros and cons of having a baby by yourself. In this age of independent women having careers and travelling, whilst the biological clock keeps on ticking, it’s a decision more and more single, thirty something, women are faced with. If you are single, want to have a child, and are running out of time, then deciding to go ahead on your own can be the only option. There is no right or wrong answer here, no foolproof decision making tool, but here are some important questions to work through to make the best choice for you.

The number one thing you need is support, so have a good think about what support network you have already, or could build, to help you bring up this child. This could include family, friends, practical support, financial support and good childcare.

Another big question is “who is going to father this child?” Friend? Boyfriend? Sperm donor? If it’s going to be someone you know, be sure to clarify what that person’s role will be once the baby is born.

One of the biggest challenges a single parent faces is financial. At face value, this is obvious – you need to have some kind of income to support not only yourself, but your new family. What you may not realise, however, is just how much money you will require. Children can be expensive, and I don’t just mean nappies and baby paraphernalia. All of your living expenses increase when all of a sudden there is more than just you to care for. That child is now relying on you for somewhere to live, food, warmth, healthcare, clothing, education, entertainment and the list goes on. You have taken on the responsibility of providing that child with the best possible start in life so it’s up to you to make that happen.

What makes that even more challenging is that if you are the sole care-giver, then you already have a job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For every hour that you are not actively caring for that child, you need to find someone else to look after them instead, and will quite possibly have to pay for this. However it is all possible and can be made a lot easier with some forward planning.

Lastly, I think it’s worth a mention that although your timeframe to produce your baby may be urgent and you’re currently single, having a baby by yourself doesn’t necessarily mean you will always be a single parent. Who knows when your next ideal partner may come along? It’s quite possible that the wonderful daddy can be added to the family after the baby is born, rather than in the usual order of events. This can actually take the pressure off potential relationships, as it takes the urgency of committing to making a baby away. And, after the event, it’s obvious that the child is part of the package, which quickly weeds out any would-be suitors that aren’t interested in kids.

Yes, it is a challenge to bring up a child on your own, but it’s also very rewarding and certainly not impossible. Once you’ve got them, though, they’re here for good, so if you do want to have a child on your own, do your homework first – it’s not as easy as it looks!

I’m Not A Politician, But…

Jacqui — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:00:49 +0000

I know so many small businesses at the moment that are either going under or struggling to stay afloat (myself included) and it is not because they are not good operators or offering valuable products / services – it’s more to do with them being reliant on other small businesses as clients and getting caught up in a downward spiral.

These businesses are largely service type businesses such as media publications, business coaches / consultants, graphic designers, copywriters, web designers/ developers, etc. At a time when businesses need to innovate, learn and grow, develop and try new strategies, promote themselves, advertise their goods and services, they are instead hunkering down because they can’t afford to spend in these areas. Not only does this mean that businesses aren’t moving with the times, it also means that other small businesses that in turn are reliant on these businesses as clients, also slow down, and so on it goes.

A simple idea could be for government to introduce some kind of small business incentive / subsidy /grant that allows small businesses to spend on training and development and /or marketing and promotion to drive their businesses forward, as long as they spend this money with other NZ businesses.

I know it’s very trendy to look at bigger business and the ability to export out of New Zealand, but at the heart of New Zealand lies a helluva lot of talented individuals who are self employed or running small businesses. That equates to a big waste of skills & experience when their businesses go under and they can’t find jobs, and a huge loss if they decide to go overseas because they can’t earn a living here.

I’m not a politician, or particularly a strategist, so I’m certainly not suggesting this would solve all the ills of the economy. But, I do think this simple initiative could turn around a downward spiral that I am seeing every day. Let’s get our talent moving forward again, in a positive way, that will benefit us all.

Paralysis by Analysis

Jacqui — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 01:29:36 +0000

Feeling stuck and frustrated? These two feelings often go together and are often inextricably linked. Generally you feel frustrated because you are stuck, and there is a simple explanation for being stuck – it is because you’re not moving! It’s easy to blame other people, our environment, and circumstance but actually, the source is usually us. The good news is that means we can do something about it.

Feeling stuck, being stuck in a rut, groundhog day, going through the motions…. they’re all euphemisms for the same phenomena, and often stem from needing to do something different and making a change, but not doing it. It could also be thought of as resisting the flow of life.

Change can be scary, even when we want to change, and/or know we need to change… even when we realise the benefits of change will leave us in a much better space. Because of fear we try and prepare ourselves well in order to ensure the change is successful. Such preparation is useful to a point, but it is easy to overdo it and end up stuck in the no-man’s land known as ‘paralysis by analysis’. Spending too much time preparing for every possible outcome and trying to get all your ducks in a row, is actually a pointless exercise – the ducks always move.

And so it is with life. Everything is dynamic, constantly moving. Like a game of chess, every move has the potential to completely change the game. To plan all your moves at the beginning of the game would make it necessary to play entirely by yourself and control all the conditions. Not only would this be boring and lonely, but you may miss out on better opportunities that are only made possible by another player’s moves.

So all you need to know is the first move. Then you assess the best move to make next once it is your turn to move again. The possible moves change all the time and can’t necessarily be planned in advance. If you don’t know what the first move should be, or feel like you can’t make a good move, then just make any move. This is kind of like a reshuffle. Sometimes there are no great moves to be made, as in any game. But by at least making a move, even if it is sideways, then you keep the game moving and change the dynamics which may open up a better move for the next turn.

So if you’re stuck, move! Any move is better than staying stuck. Take a leap of faith and do something. Movement builds momentum. The first step is often the hardest and requires the most energy. Once you are moving it is easier to keep going.

Stuck in Procrastination

Jacqui — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 04:06:30 +0000

Procrastination is defined as “deferring action”. It’s easy to rationalise why we put things off that we don’t want to do – maybe we’re scared of the consequences, maybe we don’t know ‘how’ to go about it, maybe we simply ‘don’t want to’. Sometimes there are even unintended benefits to this procrastination – all sorts of things get done, that wouldn’t otherwise be contemplated – drawers get cleaned out, letters get written, chocolate cakes get baked…. and eventually when the pressure of a looming deadline gets intense enough, and/or the threat of consequences if you don’t do it, get bad enough, the procrastination evaporates and you simply have to take the action required.

But why do we put off doing the things that we DO want to do?

Generally, this type of procrastination is linked to our attachment to a desired outcome. The fear of getting something wrong, or not achieving our desired outcome, can stop us from taking any action at all. As long as we do nothing, our desired outcome is still a maybe, it’s possible. The fear of that ‘maybe’ becoming a ‘no’, prevents us from taking the action that could turn the ‘maybe’ into a ‘yes’.

We place too much value on how we think things need to pan out, in order to get ‘where’ we want to go, or ‘what’ we want. We micro manage our actions to the point where we stall, we get stuck, we’re too scared to move, in case we make a mistake.

The trick is to trust in the process. Trust that any action is a step in the right direction – even if it doesn’t seem so at the time. Trust that you are heading to your desired outcome, even if it seems like you’re given a U-turn, a detour, or even a dead end.

Getting somewhere requires movement. And each movement changes the state of play. You literally need to move one step at a time, and each step will be subject to factors and variables that you may be aware of, but that are outside your control. Pre-planning all the steps to your desired outcome is a waste of time and energy as the best steps may not even be apparent yet.

If you’re clear on your desired outcome / your end result, don’t put off taking a step towards it. Any movement is positive, even if it doesn’t seem so at the time – it may just be shaking things up to make the next step possible.

Your Heart is a Powerhouse

Jacqui — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 03:50:15 +0000

When you live your life from your heart, you tap into a huge source of energy – energy that replenishes you, recharges you, and makes the work required to action tasks seem effortless. In contrast, when you are living your life from your head, there is nothing to replenish you, and your energy is quickly drained, leaving you mentally fatigued, exhausted and often with a nasty headache!

This is the difference between feeling and thinking. If you over think something, you can literally feel your brain whirring around in over drive. Conversely, if you go with what you “feel” is right, decisions and a course of action come comparatively easily. Put simply, brain power is limited, heart power is limitless.

Of course the head (mind and brain) has an important role to play. It is useful for putting structures and plans in place to make things happen effectively. The trick is to use it for its intended roles without letting it completely take over the show!

This is why you are much more likely to achieve goals you actually want to achieve, to be successful in a business you actually enjoy, to have a long lasting relationship with someone you really love. This is why you hear stories of people beating incredible odds to achieve their dreams, of mothers lifting cars to save their children, people with no legs climbing Mt Everest. The thing is you can pretty much have anything you really want. Not because it just happens with the wave of a magic wand, but because if you really want it, your heart will unleash an amazing force of energy to help you do whatever needs to be done in order to make it happen.

So what you do really want for yourself? What would you love to do this year? Who would you love to be? If you are truly honest with yourself and your heart is fully, 100% involved, then anything is possible.

Allow Yourself to Receive

Jacqui — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:13:43 +0000

Being fiercely independent is limited and selfish. A controversial statement perhaps, but as Helen Keller famously said, “Alone we can achieve so little, but together we can achieve so much.” Even Einstein, known more for his mathematical genius than his philosophies on life, deduced that “when two people put their heads together, it is like a third person has entered the room”.

A certain amount of independence is a good thing. It’s useful to be capable of looking after yourself and to be responsible for your actions. But being completely self-sufficient is counter-productive. Being totally self reliant cuts you off from community which is essential for us to “thrive”, rather than merely “survive”.

As humans we have needs beyond basic food and shelter. We have an emotional need for community – to share, to love, to feel, to contribute. Being part of a community is a two way street – you need to be able to “give” and to “receive”. In order for the process to work effectively, receiving is equally important as giving. One can’t happen without the other. So it’s important to take your turn at both.

Sometimes we feel like we have to do it all, that there is no help available. There is always help available, but you have to be willing to allow it. Maybe you need to create some space to let the help in? Allow yourself to receive. Stop doing it all, so there is room for others to help you. Ask for help and accept it graciously when it comes. Let go of needing to control everything yourself, so other people can help you. And remember that receiving help is just as valid as giving it. Both sides of the equation are crucial to the process – so we all need to do our fair share of both!

4 Quick Questions for the Best Decision Every Time

Jacqui — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:37:45 +0000

Are you having trouble making an important decision? Maybe you’ve tried weighing up the pros and cons, but still can’t decide?

Here’s a strategy that I find very helpful for tough choices. It’s a simple process involving four questions. They are known as the Cartesian Questions and were developed by a famous metaphysician called Rene Descartes. You’ll need some paper to keep track of your answers.

The questions are:

* What will happen if you do?

* What will happen if you don’t?

* What won’t happen if you do?

* What won’t happen if you don’t?

If you like you can divide your piece of paper into 4 quadrants:

* WILL / DO

* WILL / DON’T

* WON’T / DO

* WON’T / DON’T

You’ll find this really gets you thinking about the pros and cons at a deeper level, helping you make the best decision for you. When you see the answers you’ve jotted down for each question, the decision becomes very clear.

You Can’t Stockpile Opportunities

Jacqui — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:19:45 +0000

Ideas and opportunities can come any time, any place. Often they just start as a thought that pops into your head. They can arrive completely randomly, or be triggered by something you see, or hear. I like to think ideas come from a greater source, something we can’t fully understand, but that is more powerful than just little old us. As such, an idea is a gift and it should make you do something, take some kind of action – but how often do we get great ideas and not do anything with them?

Usually it’s that same old obstacle holding us back – FEAR. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of what people might think…. and the list goes on.

When you are open to the flow – of energy, and of life itself – ideas and opportunities can come anytime and frequently. The thing with flow, though, is it needs to keep flowing! Ie, it needs to keep moving. If you start stockpiling your opportunities, you block the flow. You create a traffic jam in your mind and new ideas can’t get through until the first one is out of the way.

I realise it’s not always practical to act on ideas immediately. Sometimes you have to pop an idea to one side – maybe it needs more time, more thought, more information, or more resources before you can act on it. You can still keep your ideas and opportunities flowing by moving this one out of the way. A coach I once worked with, had what he called an Idea Incubator. He looked at my To Do list and wondered why things would still remain on the list week after week – I simply couldn’t action them yet, even though I still wanted to.

He said, “Jacqui, you need to take these things off your To Do list and put them in your Incubator – they are wasting valuable time and energy and clogging up your flow. When you are ready to actually do something with them, move them back on to your action list then.”

Your incubator could be a box, a folder, a book or just a scrap of paper in a safe place. Anywhere where you know you can keep your ideas safe without having to actively remember them.

Another important thing about ideas and opportunities is that there are plenty of them. You don’t have to take them all. Opportunities are like buses – one gone is one gone forever, but don’t worry, there will be another one along soon. There’s no point wasting your time longing for the one you’ve missed, just get yourself ready to take the next one!

To make the most of your ideas and opportunities you need to be proactive. You have a choice to make and the sooner you do it, the better. Here’s a simple Opportunity Filing System with three options:

Act on it
Decide not to act on it – ie, Bin it!
Move it to the Incubator so it’s in a safe place for the future.

There’s no right or wrong choice, just choose. If you’re not happy with your choice, choose again. But DON”T let your ideas take up valuable space in the forefront of your mind while you do nothing – this will block your flow and stop new opportunities getting through!

Written by Jacqui Thomas

Denying Your Emotions Can Make You Sick

Jacqui — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:07:31 +0000

It’s all very well to think positive and to choose to be happy, but what if you don’t actually feel happy and positive? What if actually you really feel scared, angry, sad, disappointed, hurt?

It has become common to view these so called negative feelings as bad. It’s not socially acceptable to spend too much time being angry or bitter, or moping around being miserable. In response to that we tend to then deny these feelings when they arise, but the problem is, by denying them they don’t go away, they just get buried beneath the surface. And that, I believe, is dangerous and unhealthy. Beneath the surface they fester, and eventually explode in some way – either emotionally, or physically.

Louise Hay, is well known for her work around this issue and her best selling book – You Can Heal Your Life. Her basic philosophy is that every physical health issue stems from a mental or emotional issue. Disease is actually Dis –Ease within your self. At the back of her book she has a listing of most physical ailments along with the probable cause of the Dis-ease. Most ailments go back to a root cause of some kind of fear, resentment, anger, disappointment or lack of self worth. Which brings us back to our problem – what do we do if we are feeling these kind of feelings and don’t want to make ourselves sick?

The answer seems like a contradiction – the answer is to actually feel them. A mind-body practitioner that I respect, Dr Dov Phillips, explained it to me with this analogy:

“When something makes us happy, we smile. If we find something funny, we laugh. With our “positive” emotions we feel no need to control them, we just let them happen. The emotion is triggered, we respond, and then that emotion is gone, it’s on to the next one. With our so-called “negative” emotions, we often don’t feel that it is appropriate to respond, so we store it. Something makes us sad or angry, but we don’t feel like it’s ok to cry or yell, so we hold it in and control it. We store it for later, but usually we never go back and release it. So it gets stored and it builds up and eventually it causes us problems because we haven’t acknowledged it. If we had acknowledged it when it happened it would have been gone immediately after, just like the thing that triggered us to smile and feel happy.”

My concern was what if feeling the negative feeling caused a downward spiral – how do you avoid getting caught up in feeling miserable or angry, when you don’t want to feel like that?

Dr Dov’s response:

“Where people get caught up is in their own stories. Don’t attach a story to your feelings (ie, what happened to make you feel this way) or these will continue to replay in your head. Simply feel the feeling – acknowledge what you feel, allow yourself to really feel that feeling, do whatever you need to do to express the feeling, and let it go.

Written by Jacqui Thomas

The Winter Olympics – a Great Example of Courage, Focus, Guts, Determination & Tenacity

Jacqui — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:33:34 +0000

My six year old daughter and I enjoyed some chill out time on Sunday afternoon, watching the Winter Olympics on TV. She asked me why I had tears in my eyes. It was simply because I find it so special and awe-inspiring to share in the experience of such dedicated athletes living their dream. The focus, the determination, the sheer hard work that goes into preparing for such an event is so intense, that the energy coming out of the television screen is almost palpable. And then it all comes down to one race.

The event we were watching was the Final of the Women’s Moguls. A tough event, but very cool to watch. As we approach the final, the Canadian woman is assured of a medal as long as she doesn’t make any major mistakes. Her home crowd roared their support and then, halfway through the course, the unthinkable happened, she lost control and took a major tumble! Skis are flying off in all directions, she’s obviously in pain, plus she has the knowledge that all those years of hard work, and her hopes of a medal, have now come crashing down. The medal was so close, and now she is out of contention.

But, to her credit, she picks herself up and finds her skis. She takes a moment, and focuses on the finish line. She takes a deep breath and she carries on, completing the jumps and the rest of the gruelling course. There were more tears and a standing ovation in our house! What a fantastic illustration of courage, guts, focus, determination and tenacity.

We may not be Olympic skiers but we can all learn from this. How often do we stop at the first obstacle? How often do we quit before we reach the finish line? They say that if you shoot for the moon, even if you fail you may still land on a star. She didn’t get the medal, but she is still a star in my book!

Written by Jacqui Thomas