I remember one night about 4 years ago.

I was presenting to the CEO of the Commercial Bank at Lloyds the next day.

And I was dreading it.

The idea of being in a meeting with the CEO and a host of other big cheeses all staring me down and listening to my every word was terrifying.

What if I stumbled over my presentation?

What if I didn’t know the answer to a question?

What if I said the wrong thing?

It felt like a situation I couldn’t win, only lose.

All these thoughts (and plenty more) were swirling around my head as I lay wide awake in bed just after midnight.  I could feel my heart beating progressively faster, my breath shorten and my chest tighten as I realised that, rather than drifting off into the land of nod, I was becoming more & more awake and my worry about not getting to sleep was making it even less likely that I would.

That night I tossed and turned for about 6 hours, drifting between half awake and half asleep.

2 hours before my alarm went off at 6.30am, I was waking up every 20 minutes.

And when my alarm did finally start beeping, my brain was so frazzled and I was so exhausted that I literally had no space to think about anything else other than getting to that meeting and getting it over with.

I ended up stumbling through my presentation and whilst I’m sure I didn’t make a positive impact, I also avoided getting fired.  So that was a result.

Examples like this were a big part of my banking career.

And whenever I had a bad night’s sleep, it wasn’t just the lack of sleep which frazzled me. 

I’d inevitably give myself a tough time for having a bad night’s sleep too.

I felt I should have slept better, which just made it worse.

As a result, I invested in everything from sleep masks to earplugs, from lavender pillow sprays to black out blinds and to the finest Egyptian cotton sheets which John Lewis had to offer.

All to try to give myself the best possible chance of a longer, deeper and more restful time in the land of nod.

But none of these made much difference.

It became clear that having nagging, unpleasant thoughts doing merry-go-rounds in my head just before I switched off the bedroom light was never going to be the way to catch quality zzz’s, no matter if my pillows were stuffed with duck feathers, goose feathers or feathers plucked straight from the sleek & magical back of Harry Potter’s pet owl Hedwig.

Fortunately, things are very different nowadays.

I never aimed to “cure” my sleep.  That wasn’t what I was shooting for when I set off on my journey to discover why I was so fed up at work.

But my sleep has hugely improved as a result of that journey and it’s been a pleasant surprise.

A couple of months back, I made a financial presentation to a room of 60 or so colleagues.  Right now, twice a week, I’m running Mindset Workshops in the office.

Back in the day, these would’ve been just the sorts of events which would’ve kept me awake at night.

And while there are still a few butterflies, they're usually not enough to stop me drifting off and waking up fresh, relaxed & raring to go.

The more I’ve understood about the role & purpose of thought, what thought is and where it comes from, the more my mind has settled itself down and the old thoughts rattling around my head have eased.

And with this comes a host of unexpected benefits.

Like sleeping better.

Even nowadays when I’ve tossed & turned all night or woken up early and not been able to get back to sleep (it still happens – I’m not saying it doesn’t), I'm not agitated by it in the same way.

And that’s because I have less thinking about that too.

Before anyone asks, I’m not claiming my coaching will cure your insomnia.

But what I am claiming is that when anyone wakes up to the true nature of thought and their mind settles down, it’s amazing just how far and wide the benefits can spread.

Exploring the nature of thought is where my coaching comes into its own.

Snuggle up over here to get the details:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com

 - Tom