I’ve been moving on towards my goal of being a college student in September. Some days I can still hardly believe it. It’s been a long time held goal, but when it started to happen, somehow I wasn’t mentally prepared for it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all been very exciting and I’m loving the ride. I just feel I wasn’t prepared. Maybe that’s always how it is when you start something new. You can do all the planning in the world, but then, one day, you just have to start with the doing. When all the planning, thinking and visualising is over - you still have to do the “doing”.
Visualising positive outcomes is helping me at the moment. When I feel scared or intimidated at the thought of being a student, which is WAY beyond my comfort zone, I spend time day-dreaming the scene…
I’m arriving at the college. I can see the entrance and I’m walking in. Of course (since it’s MY daydream) it’s a beautiful September day. I have a map of the layout of the college, so I use it to find my way to my first lecture. There is a huge variety of people already there when I arrive. Some are mature students like myself. Most are school leavers (like my son). I feel a bit like first day at school - excited but a bit anxious because I don’t know the people yet, or the routine. Still, everybody - no matter what age - is probably feeling the same, so I take the plunge and introduce myself to the first group I meet. After a few short minutes, I am chatting away with a group of students, who are all here to study the same subjects as I am. We already have a common interest, so it makes conversation easy…
Y’see how I do it? I make up words and pictures of how it will be, so that when I get there, it will no longer feel like something new and strange. It will feel more familiar and comfortable. Maybe I’m crazy - but I think it will help!!
Laugh out loud! Make a note of five things that make you laugh out loud. For me that would include: Laurel & Hardy movies; Tom & Jerry cartoons; Bob Newhart video clips (see below) and comedian Dara O’Briain. Be sure to laugh heartily for a good 10-15 minutes. You should be breathless from laughing.
List at least 10 things you have to be grateful for right now, today, this minute. I always start with thanks for my family and friends, my health, good weather (which cheers me up) etc. As you write them, focus your thoughts on that person or thing that you are so grateful for, it really brightens your day.
Finally, pass on your good feeling to someone else. If you’re in the office, smile at colleagues and give them a word of appreciation, affirmation or positive feedback. If you’re at home, arrange to have a chat with someone who always makes you feel good (in person, by phone, online, wherever). Do your best to ensure that, by the end of your interaction, you are both feeling better for it.
That’s it. You probably have lots of other ways to improve your mood, but the important thing is to take immediate action. Don’t let the mood keep sinking. Grab it by the lapels and bring it up into the sunshine!
By the way, if anyone has the Bob Newhart Driving Instructor video/sound clip, I’d love a copy. It cracks me up!
I came across this clip today, and I really like it. I would put it in under my “Feelgood Tasks” because I think it relates to a whole change of behaviour, which will bring long term benefits to your self and others.
Let me know what you think. I haven’t heard of this group before, so I’m promoting them. I just like the clip. I like what it says. It’s positive, affirming, motivational and it gets us out of ourselves and our own little world and gets us to focus on how we interact with others. Hopefully we can make that interaction a positive one.
I am really interested in self development, as you know, and love to read up on development tools and techniques all the time. When I can, I like to attend talks given by leaders in the field of personal development. I was at a seminar years ago, given by Hale Dwoskin (The Sedona Method), here in Ireland. There was one moment I remember very clearly, like a moment of revelation. You may know the Sedona method and the way of asking yourself the three questions:
“Could I let go of this feeling?”
“Would I let go of this feeling?”
and
“When?”
When I heard him say them first, I thought they were simplistic to the point of idiocy. How wrong I was! Hale started by asking us to bring to mind a way of feeling or reacting that we had, that was unpleasant and harmful to ourselves. Something we felt we had no control over e.g. feeling really angry about something that had happened in the past, or someone who pushed our buttons and made us feel mad every time we met them.
I thought of a particular piece of “baggage” I was carrying from my past. I felt powerless to dump it, it seemed to have come from my past and I was busy dragging it into my future too.
First question: “Could I let go of this feeling?” I asked myself. Well, of course I could. You don’t think I want this bad feeling, do you? I’d get rid of it at the drop of a hat.
Second question: “Would I let go of this feeling?” Was I willing to let this feeling go? Yes! Just show me how and it’ll be gone, I promise you. Yes, I would definitely let go of this if I could.
Third question: “When?” Interesting here. When I asked myself this question, the immediate response I got, deep in my mind, before I even formed the thought - was - “As soon as I have something else to put in its place.”
That really got me thinking. Somehow, even though I felt that I could and would get rid of this unwanted baggage, there was also a part of me so used to it that I wouldn’t give it up - unless I had something to replace it with.
I looked at this in various ways. One thing I could do would be to replace it immediately with a good feeling, or positive thought. Then, whenever I was going to feel the old baggage feeling, I could instead feel the good feeling. I thought about how I could motivate myself to do this any time I had an unwanted negative feeling. Then I wondered why I had to replace it at all. Why could I not just get rid of it, let it go?
And you know, the interesting thing then was that, it seemed that once I had acknowledged it happening at all, I didn’t make the old link any more. D’you know what I mean? It was like I couldn’t run that old programme anymore. I had been found out - by me! So, for that particular thought/feeling pattern, the link was broken.
I don’t always remember to use the Sedona method any time I have a negative pattern to break, but it has proved very useful and effective to me in the past.
Just thought I’d share that with you. Hope it helps you too.
I’m always looking for the easiest way to do anything. If you tell me there is a long-drawn out process or an easy three step approach to doing something, or achieving a particular result - which one appeals to me? That’s right! I’m always going to take the 3-step approach! I don’t think I’m alone in this? I like to think it’s human nature. Perhaps it’s only my nature!
I know there are many of you that feel the same. This is for you. It’s not rocket-science. It’s not limited to those of us involved in life coaching. It’s for everyone. There is nothing difficult or complicated about these steps. But the simplicity is in the doing!
Step 1: Be very clear on what, exactly, you want to achieve. That sounds like the simplest thing - and it is - but it’s the one that a lot of us overlook in our drive and enthusiasm to get the thing done, or the goal achieved. You need to be as specific as you can possibly be about your goal. For example, you might say “I want to lose weight“. That’s a goal - yes it is. But if you say “I’m going to weigh xxx lbs by 30th November 2009“, then you are setting up the expectation in your own mind and that will be what you’re subconscious will work away on for the weeks in between. It doesn’t mean that all you have to do is set the goal and do no work! It just means that the closer the focus, the easier it is to reach. Think of it like getting directions to somewhere. You stop on the road and ask someone “How do I get to ...?” Now, is it more useful for them to say “It’s about 10 miles away in that direction” or to say “Follow the road here for 8 miles, take a left at the bus station, continue for about 2 miles, past the garage, then it’s the second turn on the right - and there you are“??? I know which directions I’d find more useful!
Step 2: Take action. Another obvious one. But I can tell you from my own experience that it’s often a lot easier to do all the planning and research than it is to take the action. But very little will happen without the action. It would be like (as in step 1) setting the goal for yourself, but never taking any action about it. If you think, or even plan, to - for example - lose weight, nothing is going to happen if you sit around, eating biscuits and drinking lattes while you PLAN to achieve the weight loss. It won’t happen till you DO SOMETHING about it.
Step 3: Acknowledge your success. Congratulate yourself every little step of the way. Give yourself all the praise and validation you deserve for every little part of your goal that you achieve. Don’t wait until you reach the big, final goal. It’s too easy to give up before that if you feel disheartened. But if you keep feeling good about all the little triumphs along the way, it will keep you motivated to finish what you started.
That’s it! Three simple steps to achieving your goals. Give it a go. You’ve got nothing to lose (except a few lbs!!).
We all want the best for ourselves in our lives. We want the best job, the best salary, the best partner, the best kids, in short - the best life. That’s great. We are built to go after what we want in our lives. We don’t always know, or acknowledge that we know, how to do that.
I think I’ve mentioned before that I am engaged in an ongoing coaching relationship with the Canfield Coachingteam in the U.S. It is constantly providing me with thought-provoking and challenging issues. Change and growth are all part of the process. Sometimes I feel like I’m going round in circles. At others I feel like I’m stuck in the one spot, going nowhere at all. I even feel, sometimes, that everything is changing too quickly and I can’t cope. Here is a brief list of helpful tips I got from one of Jack Canfield’s motivational CDs.
What do we need to do?
Stop doing what’s not working. So you’ve tried lots of things. Some of them were deliberately tried, some of them out of desperation, or as a last resort, but - if you’re still here - then you’ve been trying lots of things to get to the stage of still being here. If you hadn’t tried crossing the street against the red light you would not now know how dangerous that can be! But you’ve survived - so you learned something by that. Every little thing we do in our lives is based on tiny, instant decisions we make, which are - in turn - based on previous responses we have gotten to things we tried.
Do more of what is working. When you find something you do that really works for you, that gives you the response/feedback/result you desire, then incorporate more of that into your life. Apply it to other areas of your life/work and see how that succeeds for you.
Try new things and see what does work. The only way to increase the number of ways you can succeed and make changes is to continue to add new skills/tools to your repertoire. It’s risky, I know. And risky can mean scary. But think of the payoff. You get to identify lots of new powerful techniques to improve/change you life. So try new things. Take each one for a test drive. If it works add it to your list of what works, and if it doesn’t then add it to the list of things to stop doing!
Overall you’ll have added greatly to your knowledge and experience, right now, in the present. You’ll also have identified new skills to use to create a better future for yourself.
I was doing an exercise recently, in fact I’m still working on it, about motivation. The exercise was to determine what motivates me. I wracked my brain. I asked myself deep, searching questions. The only thing I could come up with was - that when my family is in a crisis of any sort, small or large, I am motivated like never before. My focus becomes clear. My focus is razor sharp. My senses are like that of an animal hunting, or being hunted. Everything to left and right fades away and only my path becomes clear, focused and definite.
But the exercise required me to mention 5 ways/things that motivate me. I could not think of any others. I did the exercise with a colleague. Still nothing. I was beginning to feel that it was odd that only a negative thing would motivate me so energetically. So I e-mailed a couple of people to ask them what questions I could ask myself to elicit the answers. They both replied in much the same way. They pointed out that I was motivated every day, I just didn’t think about it. Why would I get out of bed in the morning if I wasn’t motivated? Why would I have tried to do the exercise in the first place, if I wasn’t motivated? Why would I eat, read, learn, feed my family & care for them, drive my kids to their classes etc. if I wasn’t motivated?
So I began to see that I was looking for a huge motivating factor. I was looking for what motivates me to make big decisions, or big changes, or take big chances. But, while these occasions for the BIG motivator and BIG response do exist, they are not the nuts and bolts of my everyday living. My ordinary (if any motivator is truly ordinary) motivations are the same as the big one I identified - I love my family. I want to be loved, needed, appreciated, listened to. I want to feel good. That motivates me to do the things that will lead to me feeling good. End of story.
I’ve been moving on towards my goal of being a college student in September. Some days I can still hardly believe it. It’s been a long time held goal, but when it started to happen, somehow I wasn’t mentally prepared for it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all been very exciting and I’m loving the ride. I just feel I wasn’t prepared. Maybe that’s always how it is when you start something new. You can do all the planning in the world, but then, one day, you just have to start with the doing. When all the planning, thinking and visualising is over - you still have to do the “doing”.