This is Episode 143, The Key to Mastery and Transformation.


If you want to do things differently but need some help making it happen then tune in for your weekly dose of coaching from me, Maisie Hill, Master Life Coach and author of Period Power. Welcome to The Maisie Hill Experience.


Hello, folks, it is great to be spending this time with you today, wherever you’re listening to me. When I get ready to record, I think about you listening to me on your commute, when you’re out walking, or cooking your dinner, driving around. I love that I get to create this and be in conversation with you.


Because what I imagine happening is that I do the talking, but you have a conversation with me in response. That an internal conversation is kicked off within you. I know that many of you also discuss things with your friends and colleagues, too. I just think it’s amazing that we can do this. It blows my mind that it’s even possible.


I have a bunch of updates for you today. The first is personal. The second is about my work and a decision that I’ve made, which is all related to today’s topic.


So, Nelson and I got back from our holiday yesterday. It’s my first day back in at work and I have to tell you, I’m feeling so incredibly regulated. I know that holidays are meant to be relaxing and rejuvenating, and the idea is that you get back feeling refreshed. I have had those experiences in my life with some trips.


But here’s what I’ve realised. I mainly feel that way when I’ve been on a work trip of some kind. Holidays usually means spending time with humans, the ones I love and strangers. It also means not engaging in my special interests in the same way that I can when I’m working.


So, my particular flavour of autism is very high on special interests. When I was assessed that came up as particularly strong, along with sensory sensitivities and social stuff. So, engaging in my special interests is very regulating and rewarding to me, as it is to many people who are autistic. Throughout my adult life, my special interests have also been my work; the menstrual cycle, hormones, reproductive health, pregnancy, perimenopause, and also everything related to being an entrepreneur.


Therefore, my work has been my special interest. Which is why weekends, in a typical working week where you work Monday to Friday and don’t work weekends, can be challenging for me. Because the expectation is that you don’t work then. Which for me, means not engaging in my special interests. I mean, I can through my thinking, but it’s not the same.


I soon got rid of that notion of not working weekends, thank goodness, and I just started doing what I fancied and what felt good. Prior to that, I would say that I was gasping for Mondays in the same way that I imagine most people can’t wait for their weekend to start.


Anyway, this holiday was a horse-riding holiday. Horses and horse riding have become a new special interest for me to share. I cannot express enough how flipping amazing it was to go away for five days, be riding for up to four hours a day, and literally, the rest of the time talking about horses with Nelson, my son, and with the other guests. There was barely any chit chat, which is like autistic heaven for me.


So, it was like an inversion of the amount that I usually get to talk about horses. I just emphasise the impact of this. We stayed at a cortijo, which I believe translates to a rural dwelling. So, it was a farmhouse and stables, a 20-minute walk from the nearest village, all amongst the olive groves, and all very lovely.


But not much, in terms of entertaining a seven-year-old in the kind of way that he’s used to. There was a pool, thank goodness. There was some internet for a brief moment at the very beginning of the trip, but it wasn’t great to begin with and then it packed in all together after the first day. So, there was no TV and there were no other kids there, just Nelson.


The moon also moved into Aries halfway through the trip, and if you’ve listened to any of the episodes I’ve done with my coach and astrologer, Robin Langford, you’ll know that when the moon is in Aries I prefer to be on my own. It’s also when my sensory sensitivities get dialled all the way up. And for this trip, I was also in the luteal phase of my cycle.


So, for me to be on holiday with Nelson, with these particular circumstances going on, and come back feeling this regulated is really incredible. I mean, it really is. Travelling back also wasn’t the smoothest; our flight was delayed, the airport was busy, I have a hard time filtering out noise so I could hear all the conversations going on around me, plus all the tapping or the feet dragging. So much.


And there was loads of turbulence on the flight. For someone who gets nauseous moving ever so slightly on a swing, you can imagine what that felt like for me. I was too hot, which dysregulates me too. Basically, because of that journey home, I was fully expecting to need a day to recover. To just seclude myself and lie down and recover from the journey.


But I didn’t. I didn’t need to, and I feel great. I’m blown away by this, as you can hear. I’m convinced it’s because I had all that time not just writing, but just engaging with my special interest to the degree that I wanted to. I want to invite you all to do something this week that you really enjoy doing. You don’t have to be autistic to do this.


What’s your thing? What do you love to do? Where do you enjoy hanging out? Who do you love to be with? That includes being with yourself as well as other people. How can you embrace what you love, who you love, or anything? How can you embrace that this week? Don’t tell me that you don’t have the time to do it. Of course, you have the time to do this in some way. Okay?


All right. That’s the personal update. I also had another big realisation recently that I have based this episode on, and it led to an important decision about my membership that I’m going to share with you as well. But nobody panic, okay? I say that now, so that none of my lovely members worry needlessly. The membership isn’t going away.


This is something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while now, and that’s really filming our core content. So, when you join the membership, you get immediate access to my signature course, Harness Your Hormones. I created and filmed it way back in February 2021. At that point, The Flow Collective had been up and running for three or four months.


Now, the membership was originally created because when I was only working with people one on one, I had a waitlist of over 270 people wanting to work with me, waiting to work with me, and there was no way I’d ever be able to work with them all. We were just always referring people to my peers. Well, actually, I think it was just me at that point. It was just me; I was always sending people to go see this person, do that.


But people just kept asking me, “Yeah, but how can I work with you? I want to work with you.” Because of those amazing questions that I got from people, I created a 12-week course based on tracking your cycle, understanding it, and working with your cycle. The feedback from that was that it was amazing, life changing, etc.


But that it was a lot to take on board, as well as implement and integrate, all within a 12-week period. So, I was like, okay, this clearly needs to be a membership style thing so that people have time to learn, they can process, they can kind of integrate things at the speed that works for them, and have time for things to integrate and settle within them.


So, the membership started with monthly themes, somewhat based on what I taught in the course. But I was bringing in coaching to it, as well. Our first thing was boundaries, for example. As I was teaching those first few months, I just kept asking myself, well, how can I help my clients to get even better results than they are already getting?


That’s how the idea of the Harness Your Hormones course came about. It’s a blend of cycle related stuff, life coaching, and actually teaching you how to coach yourself. I teach you how to track your cycle, understand it, implement self-care, coach yourself about any situation in your life, and then how to create any goal or result that you want.


Again, we got great feedback. Thousands of people have gone through it, it’s been amazing for them. But I taught it two and a half years ago. Since then, my work has evolved, I have evolved, and the membership has evolved. It is a life coaching membership where we consider mindset, emotions, what’s going on with your body, whether that’s your menstrual cycle, or your stress responses.


I teach things to do with all of that so that you can create an amazing relationship with yourself, where your inner critic isn’t stopping you left, right, and centre. You have a compassionate, respectful relationship with yourself, so that you can have a better experience of your life and go and change the things that you want to, and go after the things that you want in your life.


So, it has changed, the membership has changed. I want new core content that reflects that. My teaching has also improved. I love to teach, I always have, I’m great at it, and it’s also got better. I just want it to be updated so that everything in there is more aligned with what happens on the daily basis inside The Flow Collective.


Everything I want to teach is already planned out, ready to go, and I’m going to be teaching it live in the coming months. That way, I can teach you my most up-to-date methods. You’ve got a chance to ask me questions live, and we can incorporate things during the session. We’re going to be starting this on Sunday, the 24th of September.


So, my suggestion is that you join The Flow Collective when the doors open on Friday 22nd, that way you can take part live. This is a fantastic opportunity to experience my teaching live, and to just soak up everything I have to share with you in our amazing community.


The videos will then become the new course content. You can catch the replays; they’ll be there for you. So, now that you know what’s happening, I’m going to tell you why I decided to do this now, because I want you to hear how I made this decision.


Because, as you may or may not know, something I invite all our members to do at the start of every season is to pick a goal that they want to create by the end of that season. So, within 90 days. This is something that I always invite you to do on the podcast, as well.


So, we are coming up on the end of the summer, or winter if you’re in the southern hemisphere. Autumn, or spring, is going to be starting in, I guess, a week or so after this episode comes out. So, what do you want to do? What do you want to create in the next 90 days? What would be a cool goal for you to work on, a result you want to create?


It can be something internal or it can be something external. Internal, I mean like, more confidence, trusting yourself, getting better at making decisions. External, I mean like, getting a new job, moving home, making new friends, that kind of thing. Okay?


We’re going to be doing an awesome workshop in the membership. I’m going to teach my clients how to do this. So, if you’re like, “Oh my God, I don’t know what to do,” don’t worry, I got you covered. You just join and watch the workshop and soak up all the worksheets, etcetera, okay.


But I want to share how I made this decision with you so that you can take whatever feels useful to you and use it to inform how you pick a goal to work with, whether that’s this season, this year, this week, whatever. Okay?


Now, around Christmas and New Year’s, I took two full days to think about my year. That included assessing the previous year, so 2022, and basically using everything I teach the members how to do in my own life. I thought about my long-term goals, and then how that translates into what needed to get done this year.


I knew that this was the year to record the new course. Along with three other chunky projects, I also considered ongoing projects and existing commitments. I reflected on being autistic and how that impacts my life and work, in all sorts of ways. I also looked at the astrological transits and how they could impact me. Then Robin checked my work and helped me with it. So, it was a very comprehensive review and planning session.


I had some big realisations as a result of it. I made some decisions that were necessary, and some of those necessary decisions were also uncomfortable. But ultimately, I got as clear as I could about the year, at least as clear as you can without knowing exactly what’s going to transpire in advance.


But of course, life happens. Sometimes you can get things done anyway, when life is happening. And sometimes, things need to be pushed and moved and rescheduled or postponed or taken off the table entirely. Being able to discern when to do that is a skill. I have a lot of experience in it.


I think more than that, though, or perhaps the reason for me being able to do that, is that I really trust myself. I really trust my decisions and my sense of knowing when it’s time to take things off and when to keep them on. This actually happened at the start of the summer. I told Beck, my director of operations, and Robin, my VA (virtual assistant) was just like, “It’s summer.” It’s actually winter for Beck, because she’s in Australia.


Regardless, we all have kids, we’ve all got less childcare right now, we all have personal stuff going on, of all kinds, right? There’s health stuff happening with us or our kids. We aren’t going to do any projects over the summer. I’m just taking that off the table.


We’re going to keep doing things. We’re going to maintain everything that needs to be maintained. But we’re not going to do anything extra until September.


Now, I want you to think about the difference in being intentional in advance about this, compared to not making that decision and things just unfolding. Okay? Even with things unfolding, probably the same amount of work would have been done, and we wouldn’t have actually started a project.


But there would have likely been stress and pressure, because we all could have been operating under the expectation that we should be doing more. Think about the power of being clear and explicit with yourself and others like this. Telling them and hearing it myself, deciding myself, hearing it in me and then telling them, it created so much space. I could literally feel the relief in them. I could hear it in their responses, it created space in me.


Although there was still work that needed to be done, including editing my book, it meant leaving everything else alone and being okay with that. I wasn’t going to entertain other stuff over the summer. If you’re going to do this, then you have to resist the urge that your brain is going to have to look at the things that you are deliberately putting off.


But it’s just an urge. You can resist urges, okay? I just coached someone earlier on today, about resisting the urge to do things, specifically in their work.


So, back to my plan for the year, I did my best with the information I had at the time. I had planned to record the new course in my office. No, it wasn’t going to be in my office. Actually, it was going to be an Airbnb; just me talking to the camera and recording the videos that way. I was going to be doing that in the spring, and I scheduled the week off to do it so that you didn’t have anything else kind of hanging around.


I just knew that’s when I’m going to do it. So, I don’t have anything else on, I can just focus. But I noticed that I was holding off on booking an Airbnb to record it. Everything was ready to go. The content was ready to film. It was all planned out. But I was just like holding off on booking the Airbnb, and it was like getting quite close to that week.


So, I self-coached on it. I also got coached on it. There was really quite a lot sitting there behind why I wasn’t booking it. It was really valuable coaching. But at the end of all the coaching, there were several sessions on it, I still didn’t want to book the Airbnb. But because of how I’d really explored a lot and cleaned things up with coaching, I was able to trust my sense of “I’m just not going to do it. This isn’t the time to do it.”


I felt confident that changing my plan like that wasn’t because I was trying to avoid something. So, I changed my mind and pulled it off my calendar. But because this was very close to when I was going to be filming, I kept the week free of other commitments, which worked out so well in the end. Because I ended up being really ill and off work for the entire week.


So, this was mid-March, I think, the end of Q1, quarter one, and the end of winter, into that season. I knew that the first draft of my next book was due at the end of June. And so, I knew that the spring season, quarter two, would be taken up with writing. I knew that I didn’t want the open tab of writing the book and filming a course or/and anything else. My brain doesn’t do well with that, I’m learning.


At this point, my thinking was like, “Well, that’s something that I could do over the summer, but I’m not sold on doing it then. So, this is going to be something for autumn.” If you’re wondering why I wasn’t sold, here is why. When I say sold, I mean convinced.


So, I’ve wanted space after handing my first draft in, that is the main thing. I didn’t want to jump straight into something else substantial. I’ve also learned that I like to work less hours in the summer. And as someone who loves her work, that’s really saying something. I was really craving time with Paul and craving time with Nelson.


I know that I always feel a surge to really get going with things in my work from September onwards; that usually carries pretty much straight through until March. So, autumn and winter are my ‘get down to business’ seasons. When I really like to go for it, and when my work catapults in some way, because it’s when I go through shifts.


So, I didn’t want to record something in advance of that happening, and then me be like, “Oh, sorry, outtakes.” It just made much more sense for me to be recording it within that transformation. I mean, really, there’s actually no escaping this. By the time you create something and it’s out in the world, it’s old to you, doesn’t mean it’s old to anyone else. But that doesn’t stop it from being a classic.


The only reasons I could find for filming it over the summer were rooted in a sense of urgency and scarcity, which of course, I cleaned up the coaching. By cleaning up I mean, I explored those thoughts and I addressed them, knocked them on the head. Noticing that a plan is coming from urgency and not good enoughness doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it and that you have to change your plan. By all means, you can keep your plan but just do it from a different place like feeling centred, good enough, and abundance, okay? Or you can decide that you’re still going to change things.


And so, with everything else that I’ve mentioned, I just knew that this was for the autumn. And because we’re getting into the time of year when I feel very connected to my work and do my most groundbreaking stuff. I knew that I wanted to teach it live, to connect with you all as I teach it, and to be able to answer your questions and help you apply what I’m teaching instantly.


Finally, recently, I was talking to someone about why I go out on hacks. So, a hack is essentially trail riding on horseback. You leave the horse-riding school and you go out into the countryside. That usually involves roads too around here, because you can’t access the bridleways without going on roads to get to them.


The hacks that we go on are a lot of walking, it’s majority walking on horseback, and then there’s a small amount of trotting. You can canter, but only if everyone in the group is at riding level suitable for that and it’s safe enough to do so. And because the ground is very dry and hard in the summer around here, it’s not good or fair for the horses to canter on it.


Because of all the walking, not much trotting, and no cantering, some riders that I talked to have commented that they don’t go on hacks because they’re boring, and they don’t get to do much, the more advanced stuff. Which is so wild to me because I have the opposite opinion.


Here are all my thoughts about it. I get an hour in the saddle. I get to be outside on a horse. It’s an hour where I get to really nail the foundations of riding. I get to really practise walking. I have all of that time to focus on my riding position, on building my relationship with that horse. I get to experience riding on different terrains, and with different considerations, like avoiding drains, so the horse doesn’t break its legs. Avoiding cars, same reason. The wind, the flies in the air, et cetera, et cetera, my riding.


I guarantee, I know this in my bones, my riding is always better after going on a hack because I learned so much on them. I have so many opportunities to improve when I’m going on them. And because I kind of get very intrigued by differences in thinking, I kept reflecting on the mindset and approach that I had compared to the one that they had; just because they’re just so different. As I said, I get very fascinated by this.


Here’s where I got to. The reason someone would want to avoid going back to basics is because one, they don’t think they need to. Two, they’ll make going back to basics mean some things about them. And three, that it’s boring, or something similar to that. So, let’s unpack these.


One. The first one, was that they don’t need to work on the basics. I have thoughts on this. I’m a big believer in returning to foundational skills. Even if you know it like the back of your hand, or think that you do, it’s still valuable to go back to the basics.


When you are very at home and confident with the basics, the advanced stuff comes much easier and requires far less of you. Plus, when you’re already familiar with something, going back to the foundations makes a huge difference.


Now, if you’ve ever done any yoga, you’ll know that to begin with, you usually learn a set of poses known as a Sun Salutation. That’s the foundation of a lot of yoga. So, you learn that and then you move on to more advanced poses or variations of them.


But then, if you return to learning sun salutations, or even breaking down specific components of them, you really get to know the foundation. It’s completely different, even though you know it already. So, although it’s for beginners, it’s also advanced training. I’ve gone to classes, not yoga once, I have gone to yoga classes but I have gone to classes as a student of something that I could have taught. Okay? I’ve still learned things, because I intentionally decided to have a beginner’s mind and soak it all up.


Like on my riding holiday, I actually wanted them to teach me as if I knew nothing, so that I could learn all over again with a different teacher, on different horses, in a different place. Even if I had the same teacher, on the same horse, in the same place, it would be a completely different learning experience because things land differently at different times.


You can be told the same thing 100 times in an exercise class, but then you have that one class where you hear it completely differently, as if you’ve never heard it before. But the teacher has said it so many times. So, that was number one.


Number two, is making you doing those basic things, and returning to those skills, mean something about you. So, the first way I thought about this, which actually rarely happens in my work, but I’ve definitely come across people who are insecure about their ability to do something. Because of that there can be an arrogance around returning to the basics.


Arrogance is very different from confidence. If someone isn’t confident about their ability, that can come through as arrogance. But in my work, it’s far more likely that someone would judge and criticise themselves for not knowing the basics by now; whatever “by now” means.


So, because they already feel bad, because of how they’re thinking about it, then they’re probably already feeling shame about it and making it mean that they’re a failure, or something along those lines. If you’re already feeling crap about something, and you’re making it mean horrible things about you, then of course, you’re unlikely to want to do it. Because you could end up feeling crap all over again.


Unless, of course, you have thought work, you can coach yourself, and you can unwind those thoughts. You can get coached too, and find a different approach.


Okay, number three, that going back to basics is boring. Who cares about boring? Like, seriously? My son’s at that age where he’s like, “I’m bored.” I’m like, “And? I don’t get it, what’s the big deal?” I mean, I do, because I remember being a kid and saying that to my mom, as well. But we can really ask ourselves, how are we making it boring?


If you think it’s boring, it for sure will be boring. How else can you think about it? Hey, I offered a whole load of thoughts earlier on about how I think about going out on hacks. You can feel free to distill those thoughts, tweak them to suit your situation, and use them. See how those thoughts make you feel, try them on for size.


Because if you’re approaching a foundational task with the mindset that it’s beneath you, or that you’ve outgrown it, or you know it already, then you’re missing out on a wealth of knowledge and experience. It’s like reading a book for the second time, or watching something for the second time, and discovering nuances that you missed the first time around.


Every time you revisit the basics you’re coming at it with fresh eyes, more experience, and a deeper understanding, which means that what’s available is even deeper. It’s the same with musicians, right? Even the most accomplished pianists still practise their scales. They’re the foundation of every piece that they play. By mastering those basics, they can play more complex pieces with ease.


They don’t need to prove that they can play the scales. Okay. I don’t think that’s the thought that they have when they’re doing it. It’s about keeping their skills sharp and their foundation strong. It’s the same for us in our lives, whether it’s our work, our relationships, or our personal growth.


Revisiting the basics can offer a fresh perspective and a deeper understanding. It can help us to see where we might have gone off track. Where we can make improvements. Where we didn’t quite understand things the first time around. It’s not about going backward; it’s about strengthening that foundation so that we can go higher.


So, the next time that you’re faced with a task or a challenge that seems basic or boring, I’m challenging you to shift your perspective. Approach it with curiosity instead, an open mind, a beginner’s mind, and ask yourself, what can I learn from this? What’s available here? How can this strengthen my foundation?


Because, as I’ve learned with The Flow Collective, sometimes going back to basics is the best way to move forward. I’m inviting you to join me as we create a new foundation, a new course, for all of us to grow from. Remember, the doors open on September 22nd. Make sure you’re on my email list so that you get your invitation. Drag one of my emails to your inbox so that it goes there, and doesn’t get hidden in promotions or junk.


Sign up and get ready, because on Sunday 24th we have our first back-to-basics call. I want you there because I cannot wait to teach you. I cannot wait to see how you use it, and the shifts that happen in your life as a result of knowing this stuff. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.


Alright lovelies, that is it for today. Have a fabulous week and I will catch you next time.


Hey, if you love listening to this podcast then come and check out my membership, The Flow Collective, where you get my best resources and all the coaching you need to transform your inner and outer life. Sign up to the waitlist at theflowcollective.co/join, and I’ll see you in the community.