3. The first step I want you to take is to pick one area of your life that you're finding challenging at the moment. Now I’m sure you are going to want to pick a load of them. I understand that so often we think that we've got to fix our morning routine, we've got to fix our evening routine. We need to get on and write that paper and feel less scared about networking and all the other things.

We can't do this all at once. There's nothing about you that needs fixing. We just get to enhance one little thing at a time. So let's just pick one thing:

-       One that feels like maybe you could make some change;

-       One thing that you are particularly beating yourself up about;

-       Or one thing that actually, if you could make some progress on that, it would help with everything else.

Once you've picked something, I want you to be as specific as possible. This is really important. Don’t put “I find writing challenging”. Put “I’m finding writing the introduction to my first paper challenging”.

Now I want you to grab yourself a blank piece of paper and a pen. Please don't do this on a computer. We're going old school, blank piece of paper and a pen, and I want you to write down why it's challenging. Tell me all the thoughts you're having. Try not to overthink this. Try not to judge what you are writing. Just try and write as freely as possible for maybe five minutes about why this thing's challenging.

You can also start to write what you are trying to do about it.

-       What are all the thoughts you are having about yourself?

-       What are the tactics you've tried?

-       What's working, what's not working?

Really brain dump all of this stuff out onto the page. Please don't carry on reading until you’ve actually done this task.

****

Now you’re back! I’m going to assume that you took a pause there and you did that piece of writing. This works so much better if you actually do the tasks as we go along. What I want you to do is I want you to look at what you wrote, and I want you to ask yourself some questions. Again, you can jot down the answers to these questions.

When you look at what you wrote, what sort of boss are you being to yourself at the moment? That's our overarching question here. What sort of boss are you being as you support yourself or don't support yourself through this challenging task?

-       How do you speak about yourself? What words are you using to describe yourself?

-       How are you making it easier or more difficult for yourself to complete this task?

-       How are you making it clear for yourself or how are you making it confusing for yourself?

-       here are you being motivating? Where are you being judgmental?

-       Look out for all or nothing thinking where you are. Using words like never and always, and everyone, and no one and all those sorts of words. Are you being a boss that's dramatizing the story?

-       Are you being a boss that's generalizing one thing to all other parts of your life?

Write down all the thoughts that you are having about what sort of a boss you are being to yourself. And remember, we are looking at this with compassion. You are probably doing all these things. You are probably not being the best boss yourself. That's why you are reading this book and is why you're a human being. Most of us aren't good at this unless we're trained how to do it. So keep noticing. Think of words you would use to describe this boss that you are being to yourself. Now, what I want you to think is what sort of boss do you need right now? So looking at this challenge that you've got, what type of boss do you need?

-       Do you need a boss who's compassionate and kind to you, because really you just need a bit of reassurance that you're not stupid and there's no need to feel embarrassed?

-       Do you need a curious boss that's going to help you look at all the options and solve a problem?

-       Do you need an encouraging boss who's going to stimulate you to get going on the things you need to do and remind you of all the ways that you've succeeded in the past?

-       Do you need a free thinking boss who's going to help you stop worrying about what everybody else thinks, what “past you” would've thought, and what future you thinks, and help you figure out just what you want to do right now?

-       Do you need an intentional boss who's going to carefully help you plot out how you can do this and how you can do it in a way that's in line with your best self?

-       Do you need a resourceful boss who knows loads of people and knows where to find things and can like connect you to the stuff you need?

-       Do you need an ambitious. Boss who's reminding you of the bigger picture and the amazing things that you are going to achieve?

-       Do you need a strategic boss who helps you navigate the complicated structures and work out how to get ahead? How to play the game?

-       Do you need a realistic boss who brings you back down to earth a little bit and reminds you that you don't have to do all of the things and that it's okay to reduce the scope and to focus on one or two things at a time?

-       or do you need a patient boss that's going to remind you that all of this will take time and that that's okay, and that nothing is going wrong here.

The good news is whatever type of boss you need, you can be that boss, and I've got a chapter on every single one of those types of bosses. So once you've worked out what type of boss you need, you can just flick straight to that chapter and figure out how best to do it.

You’ll get all the hints and tips about how to be that sort of boss for yourself. So all you need to do now is believe that that could be possible. Believe that you could boss yourself a little better than you do right now and go read that chapter.

Have fun.

**Chapters coming soon….**