"Never Have I Ever" - Official Partnership with The Millennial Coach

We are very excited to announce our Official Partnership with The Millennial Coach: Thomas Mc Cormack 😁

Thomas is a Life, Career & Business Coach who works with individuals to "figure themselves out", to "become unstuck" and create a life, career or business that is authentic and aligned to their true selves.Last year we held a workshop at Excape with The Millennial Coach and we were blown away by the effect it had on our community at Excape.We are delighted to be partnered with wonderful people like Thomas who continually adds value to people’s lives and shares the same values as us all at Excape."Underneath what you think you want to do, lies what you really want to do.Figure that out, and you'll never look back."Thomas will be sharing some insightful and thought-provoking material that we feel will resonate with us all especially during times like these.You can also check The Millennial coach out on the social platforms below:Instagram: @themillennialcoachWebsite: www.tmclifecoach.comFacebook: The Millenial CoachTwitter: @millenialcoachWe are delighted to be working with Thomas and to share his first blog with you today. Have a read below!The Excape Team💫

“Never, Have I Ever...”

You know that game that you used to play with your friends at college? Where someone would say something like “Never have I ever...kissed a boy?”...and anybody who had kissed a boy would have to take a sup of their drink while their cheeks go amber and everyone giggles and gets curious? The questions start flying in, “Oh go on, tell us, who was it?”Well, never have we ever thought we would see a time where we are told to stay in our houses, don't move more than 2km from your home, don't go to school – and if you can work from home, that's where you better do it!Oh, and one more thing – the pubs are closed for the foreseeable, so, no – you can't grab a drink with the lads.March 2020. Life changed in a way none of us saw coming. Except Bill, Mr. Gates saw it coming years ago, but we didn't listen. A problem that we don't have to deal with yet? Let's kick the can down the road and deal with it when it's at our doorstep. Oftentimes for many of us, it is the easiest thing to do.The last few weeks have seen dramatic changes in how we view “normality”. What once was something you wouldn't even think of bringing up in a game of “Never have I ever...”. Like all change that comes to us in life, no matter what we have planned, sometimes life has other ideas of where we are going. This time, it's on us all.Robin Sharma has a lovely quote in one of his books which I feel relates to what is going on for us all right now...“All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end”Initially, we didn't know what to do. How will we manage? People were buying rolls of toilet roll to build toilet roll castles (what else were they using so much toilet roll for?). Panic. I have no idea what is going to happen so I'm going to...buy a load of toilet roll!Then as time rolled on, with everyone in the same boat, we got creative and found ways to make use of our time. Zoom became the online communication app of 2020 for connecting with our friends and family, Tinder and Bumble became the ultimate “Find a PenPal” apps, and trips to Aldi, Tesco and local newsagents became our newest form of a“daily getaway”.Over the past few weeks, through conversation and noting some comments made on social media. Many of us have accepted what is, we're over the hard part and we're still navigating the messy part...we are adjusting to our new sense of “normal”There is no doubt that this is a tougher time for some more than others. But for all of us, this is a dark cloud – and within all dark clouds, there are silver linings.Over the past few weeks when I thought clients were going to come to a halt, I've noticed a trend. People are using this time to reflect on what they want from life, figure out the careers they want to pursue that are truly aligned with their true and authentic nature, or look at ways of getting more out of themselves for the life they lead. In the past it was easier to“let life get in the way”, but now life is showing us how fragile our lives really are and telling us to “stop and think for ourselves”.For the first time in a long time, life has slowed to a pace that is far off the pace we are used to living through. We can't rush around the place and be so busy that we can't sit still for long enough to take stock. For the first time in a long time, the stark reality of the current pandemic is forcing people to sit back and reflect a little. I'm sure you've read a status or two, or had conversations with friends who will say “This has really made me realise...X”.Most of us find it hard to create the space to sit back and reflect on what we want. It's not an easy thing to do, it takes a little effort to sit down, to put all distractions aside and ask ourselves questions that are sometimes easier to avoid than they are to answer.If I have learned anything over the past few years, it all comes back to one fundamental understanding. We are all the experts of our own lives, and nobody knows us better than we know ourselves. With all the noise out there, it can be difficult to figure out what it is that we REALLY want. Those answers that really can make the difference are found when you learn how to tune into your own internal GPS, or “authentic life-guiding system”. Then, we find the answers that we don't “think” are right – we will “know” they are right, or at the very least, know they are leading us in the right direction.Imagine standing in the middle of Croke Park on All Ireland Final day. Just you. All 82,000 people in the stands are shouting at you, telling you what to do. The actions you take and the decisions you make are the choices that decide where you go with your life. Standing in Croke Park with 82,000 people shouting back at you is an analogy for the noise we have coming at us on a daily basis through social media, what we think other people want us to do, what other people tell us we “should” do etc. The options, and the opinions, are never-ending.The noise can be deafening.To find a way to drown out the noise of the crowd, and listen to what you really want for yourself, is a sure way of finding the answers that make most sense for what you really want.It would be quite contradictory of me to now go on and give you advice. Instead, I have an exercise that I have used in a few of my workshops that may raise your own awareness around how you can use the covid 19 normality to make decisions that are more attuned to your own internal desires.So, on that note...I am going to give you two simple exercises that if you spend some time reflecting on, might give you a better idea of how you can better spend your energy from now on, and as time moves on and life returns to our new sense of normal. We have a chance now as individuals and as a collective, to pick up the can and see what it's trying to tell us, as opposed to kicking it down the road.Exercise One.Energisers & DrainersThis is a simple exercise. One side of a page for “Energisers” and one side of a page for “Drainers”.Energisers are the activities, people, places and things that energise you. Look back over the course of your life and think about the times when you felt “energised”.For eg. You might realise that there are people who you truly feel energised by being around, and there are other people that you always feel “drained” after being around them.If you're anything like me, you feel energised and more grounded after spending time in nature, and a little more drained spending too much time in cities or around large crowds of people.You can do this exercise in whatever way works for you. Some people do it by making a seperate list for each. One for people, one for places, one for activities and so on. Others bundle them all in together and are happy to do it that way. Once it works for you – that's all that matters.The important thing here is to raise your awareness as to how much of your time you are spending “energising” yourself, and how much of your time you are spending “draining” yourself out.With that in mind, a nice little exercise to make use of what may become evident to you from above is the “Stop, Start, Continue”.“With what I have come up with and what I have realised about myself during Covid 19...I want to STOP doing...I want to START doing...I want to CONTINUE doing...Never, have I ever...made time for myself to figure out what I want from life”Whether you can sup to that if you ever play a game of “Never have I ever” is up to you!As cliché as it may sound, there is no way around it. You hold all the answers. Take the time to reflect. Take the time to ask yourself the hard questions. Slowly but surely…...the dots will begin to join. Thomas“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”Steve Jobs