The Basics
The Matters Experiment explores the practical ‘how to’ of creating an authentic life. It applies the simple hypothesis of ‘I Matter, I am Valuable, and I am Enough’ to our hopes, dreams, goals, efforts, beliefs, relationships, career direction, and life choices, and tests it to see how simple, conscious changes impact happiness, satisfaction, and contentment.
Like any good experiment, it learns and evolves from its results. That includes testing it in different situations, with different people, at different times, and bringing it all together to grow confidence in this way of being. For that to happen… I need your help.
The idea of The Matters Experiment was inspired during an online Zoom group session while working from home in 2020. The guest speaker was a highly successful Executive Coach who expressed that in her 35 years of working with Fortune 500 CEOs, their teams, and their private friends and loved ones, issues always came down to the same three things….
“People don't feel like they're valuable…
People don't feel like they're enough…
And people don't feel like they matter..."
After the silence that followed the record scratch I experienced in my head following this statement, my inner Engineer began to deeply contemplate this idea …
- Could that really be true?
- What does this mean?
- How do I know if I feel those things?
- What would happen if I focused on those feelings rather than the other problems I experience or am focused on daily?
What followed so far has been more than four years of personal exploration of what being valuable, enough, and that I matter means to me and my life experiences.
Spoiler alert - while I don’t think I will ever say that I have PROVED it to be true, I have not yet found an example where it isn’t. Exploring this idea is quite simply changing my life for the better and I invite you into this adventure to see what impact it can have on YOUR life as well.
Join me in The Matters Experiment.
You are probably familiar with what this feels like...
“Nothing I do is good enough. I haven’t done it right. How did I end up in this situation again? What is wrong with me? Why is it so easy for others? I’m trying my hardest, and yet I never seem to be able to get it right. They expect so much from me and I always seem to disappoint them. What do I have to do?”
Or, “I never feel like I’m settled. I always feel like I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time. When I’m thinking about work, I feel guilty for not being present with my partner or friends, yet when I am with them, I always feel like the odd one out. They don’t seem to get me. Why are others getting ahead so easily? How are they so lucky? Maybe I’m just not wired that way.
No one wants to feel like that.
Imagine what you could do if these thoughts weren’t eating away at your confidence and self-belief?
It starts young.
Being the last one to be chosen on the PE team because you don’t play in the same soccer squad as the others on the weekends, or feeling invisible when the teacher congratulated your partner for an excellent presentation when you were the one who did all the research and prepared the slides.
It is very easy to believe that our value or worth is determined by others and what we do with our lives.
What is it like to explore the experience of feeling valuable on the inside before the external world tries to quantify it for us?
What kind of impact does it have on the quality of our life when we believe we are valuable and worthy of happiness and success?
Sitting on the phone for more than 40 minutes waiting for your electricity supply company to take your call….
Watching your workplace go through yet another restructure, and the boss who has been advocating for your promotion gets moved into a new division….
Waiting in the emergency department for four hours with your 3 year old niece who has lost the tip of her pinkie finger in a play accident, and having to go home to get your own ice and a teatowel for some first-aid before she sees the Doctor.
Your friend goes to a new gym and joins a Pilates class with a work colleague without you, even though you’ve been the lead motivator and cheerleader of the group ‘This is our year to get fit!’ sessions together since University.
“It doesn’t matter…”
….We say it even when it does.
Fascinatingly, "Matters" comes from the Latin root "mater," or Mother. The feeling that "I matter" is a deeply personal and emotional experience that begins to imprint on us well before we are able to describe it.
To matter is a fundamentally personal human experience of what it means to matter in the world, in the lives of those we love, and, most importantly, to ourselves.
The premise of The Matters Experiment is simple: Aiming to enrich your inner experience of value, feeling enough in your life, and knowing how much you matter will positively impact your sense of self, your relationships with others, the trajectory of your career, and the general overall direction of your life.
Sounds obvious, right?!
Then it must be easy, and we are all living the life of our dreams already.
Are we, though?
This is where The Matters Experiment comes in.
Whether it is what is happening in your current job right now...
Or the number of nights you spend staring at the ceiling that you don’t want to admit…
Or just the general sense you have that you are more than what life around you is reflecting back to you right now… The Matters Experiment can help you.
If you are prepared to stop running around trying to keep all those balls in the air for a moment, take a break from the constant ‘busyness’, and stop accepting that this is ‘just how it is’ for now, then The Matters Experiment is for you.
The Matters Experiment may feel like a blind leap of faith at the beginning however, the impact of this shift of perspective can start changing your life TODAY.
What have you got to lose? You can always keep going the way you are right now…. Is it good enough?
The cool thing about The Matters Experiment is you can get started on your own version right now!
Whatever is going on in your life, whether it be at your job or the progress of your career, your family or home life, ongoing situations with your friends, or the local sports club you are a part of, if you have a sense of unease, frustration, or things not being quite right, you can simply ask yourself these three questions -
Do I feel like I am enough in this situation?
Do I feel valuable, or that I am honouring my own value?
Do I feel like I matter?
If the answer to any of these is No… you have a simple choice to make.
There will always be external events or circumstances that you can react to, or feel need your attention or effort with more urgent priority, however The Matters Experiment invites you to recognise that your inner belief about how valuable you are, how you are enough, or how you matter is being triggered.
And then?
Explore it. Bring your curiosity to it.
Find your own unique way of honouring how valuable you are, how you are enough, and how much you matter, and use that as your filter for what to do next.
Sounds simple, right?
It is simple, but it isn’t easy.
Let me help you.
Your roadmap and your guide
Exploring something as simple – yet fundamental – as the way our self-worth, self-confidence, and self-belief show up and are tested in day-to-day life is best done by daily practice.
Drawing from my own experience, I have developed practices and tools which I share through my posts, my emails and – later this year – through my podcast. I invite you to become a part of The Matters Experiment by reading and replying to my posts and emails, so that we can bridge the gap from my experience to yours… together.
I also invite you to add to data which I – anonymously, if you wish – collect for my forthcoming book. To explore how this works and how it could benefit you personally to take part even at this early stage, please head over here.