This is my first blog entry from my new netbook. I know the tech-savvy among you are shaking your heads and probably thinking I’m sad to be so excited, but hey - get over it. I’m a kid with a new toy. I’m allowed to be excited! It’s so neat! It’s so tiny. I can take it everywhere I go!
The portability of this new computer makes me think of all the ways we limit our self development to a particular time and place. It’s easy to forget that we take ourselves wherever we go!!
Years ago, I did weekly yoga classes, but from one week to the next I did nothing. I simply limited my development in that area to one class once a week. It was as if Wednesday was Self-Development Day! As time went by I realised that, without even doing the yoga poses, I was becoming more aware of my posture, my thoughts, my diet - in fact all the things I was learning weekly at my class. This was happening all the time, not just on Wednesdays!
It seems naive now, but I never really thought about it at all. I just had in mind that yoga class was Wednesday, and didn’t pay attention to how pervasive our thoughts and learning are. Once we hear something, learn something, decide something - we’ve already made a slight change to our way of thinking.
Since that time, I accept that the learning never stops. And the implementing what I’ve learned never stops. That’s a good thing. If I’m always choosing self development books, seminars and classes - and if I’m regularly in the company of people for whom developing their full potential is important, then there will always be something self-improving going on in my head and in my life. What a boost!
So today - be aware of all the positive, self development elements that come your way. It may be a person you meet, an article you read (might even be this one!), a Tweet you receive, en e-mail, a blog, etc. Maybe in your own house, maybe at the railway station, someone you meet on the bus, at the cafe etc. And it’s just as important to remember that you are also that development contact for everyone you meet today. What you are giving out is being received by everyone who comes into contact with you today. It’s the ultimate give-and-take. Go Give! Go Take! Perfect balance.
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.
Have you ever considered laughter as a means of self development? It’s not what springs to mind. The first things I think of are meditation, affirmation, reflection, journaling etc. But what about this - there was a professor on the radio recently, being interviewed on the health benefits of laughter - a really, good, long, loud belly laugh. It got me thinking about how I feel after a good laugh. Even if I’m in a negative mood when I start laughing, it’s just impossible to stay negative while laughing heartily.
I find I happen to agree with the professor wholeheartedly. I believe that, no matter what our situation, our mood or our level of self development, a good laugh is going to anchor us in the here and now better than any amount of meditating or chanting could do. It is immediate, it is urgent and it causes an instant release of tension in the body.
So, apart from the self development work you are already benefiting from, I hope that, having watched the clip above, you are also laughing so much you can hardly read this now!
If you’re anything like me, you have floor to ceiling bookcases filled with self development books, CDs and DVDs. You’re actively seeking out more information to help you with your growth and self development. Are you ever satisfied? Unlikely.
Choose your favourite self help, life coaching or self development book. You’ve probably read it many times and it’s looking well-thumbed by now.
Decide what in that book was the most useful thing you’ve ever read. Think about it. There will have been a page you were reading that just made perfect sense to you, and you probably thought - “That’s for me. I can do that. That will transform my life - if I can do it”.
Read it again. I know you’re raising your eyes to the skies and thinking - “I don’t really need to read it again. That might apply to everyone else, but not me. I know Jack Canfield, Richard Bandler, Hale Dwoskin, Owen Fitzpatrick etc. (insert your own favourite guru here!) by heart.” I’m telling you - read it again NOW!
Ask yourself what is it that appeals to you about that particular passage/page/chapter? What pictures does it bring to mind? Are you reading about Paul McKenna making you rich? Or Ekhart Tolle helping you to live “in the now”? Do you see yourself driving your dream car home to that magnificent home with the seven bathrooms? Or is it that you can feel the sea breeze blowing on your face as you stand in the prow of your beautiful yacht as you sail the Caribbean?
Envision yourself living as the book suggests. Mentally create as lifelike a picture as you can. It’s important to make the image of your dreams into the image of your reality by creating as clear a vision as you can. Give it all the details - sights, sounds, smells - the whole lot. The more you can see what you will see, hear what you will hear, feel what it will feel like, the better your mindset will be for beginning.
And finally, which is the heart of the matter, Take Action! Based on your life-like and life-size vision of your future, begin to work on whichever self development programme you have chosen. At every step of the way, stop and reinforce that vision you have created in your mind and use it to strengthen your determination and inspiration to complete the work you set yourself.
A time of great change. But it could also be an opportunity for self development.
Schools are back. Children are preparing for the academic year ahead. Colleges are cranking up in preparation for the new college semester. Everything is in a state of change.
It’s a time of schedules, timetables, books, uniforms and new shoes. It is often a time of anxiety. It can be difficult to adjust to the changes in our families that come about when a young child starts school, or an older child starts college. It is not only a time of great change for them, but it has an impact on every member of the household.
However, despite the anxiety and upheaval that major change may bring, we can choose to see it as a chance to develop and educate ourselves in new areas too.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found myself quite divided about the arrival of term-time. On the one hand I’m delighted to have a bit of structure and routine returned to my life. On the other hand, I love the lie-ons during the summer. I love the openness and possibilities of the days. But by the time September comes, I’m ready to shelve all that for another year!
I start looking through the lists of courses available in my locality. What will I do this year? How will I further develop myself? It’s a time for me, a time for me to focus on my own personal development.
Of course, when I say personal development, I don’t mean that the course I choose has to be based on, or called, self development. No matter what the subject matter of the course it will give me a chance to develop in some area of my life. Over the years I have done classes in pottery, drama, yoga, creative writing, french, flower arranging, singing, art and probably others I’ve forgotten already!
They have stretched me in directions I would not have expected. They have challenged me to develop my potential in creative areas I wouldn’t have approached before. Taking up new activities has, over the years, given me a chance to meet up with other like minded people and develop new friendships and acquaintances. And - like children starting in school - I too have felt anxious at the beginning. I have tried to talk myself out of joining. I’ve tried to find supportive friends to come along with me.
And in the end I am always glad that I joined up. It’s like guerilla self-development! You start out learning flower arranging and wake up to discover that you’ve learned how to organise your time (to attend the class); control a budget (have you seen the price of fresh flowers!); meet & engage with new people; develop your creativity; enhance your home decor and probably even more besides.
So - although it doesn’t say all that on the brochure for classes in your neighbourhood - why not give it a try this September. You never know where it will take you!
… is that you get away from everything that is usual and “normal” in your life. It’s the most fantastic chance we have for self development. It gives us the opportunity to change our outlook on things in our lives.
I always find when I come from holidays (in fact even before I get home I find) I’m planning new things. I might think of a new layout for the furniture in my office or home. I might develop a new way to approach a certain client, or situation. I might decide to repaint the living room to get a whole new perspective on things. And that’s really what holidays do for me - in terms of my personal growth, they give me a change of perspective.
This year, when we came home from holidays, my husband said it had been like having “time off from the recession”. Because the recession is one thing - and it’s effects are very real. But the media “moan-fest” that goes on about it is entirely another thing. It’s like a big bandwagon all of its own. It’s a huge “ain’t it awful” circus that feeds itself on people’s misery. It’s a way of looking at it.
So time off from that was a real treat. And y’know what? The world still turned while we were away; the economists still wrung their hands; the unemployed were still unemployed; those in difficulty were still in difficulty - but the ones reporting it seemed to be having the time of their lives picking over the troubles of everyone else. That’s just their way of looking at it.
I’m very thankful that I had the opportunity to get away from it all for a few weeks. The situation didn’t change, but my view of it did. And that’s the point. When we look at some event in our lives that is causing us difficulty, it can be hard to separate the event from our reaction to it. What’s really happening is that a certain event takes place - then - we have a reaction to it. If we get to take a step back, a pause, a holiday - and choose a different reaction, then we have power over the outcome.
For example, if someone loses their job, that is a very real event. It has effects and consequences. But whether you deal with it as (i) a disaster from which you will never recover, or (ii) an unexpected event which may force you to look at things in a new way - is up to you. One will give you a miserable, self-defeating attitude, the other will give you a chance for personal development (albeit not looked for), to look at where your strengths lie and present yourself in a new way. Losing your job is the fact. How you deal with it is where your power lies.
It brings me back to the benefit of holidays. It gives us that break, that pause, in which to look at things in a new way. Happy holidays!
Do you ever look in the mirror? Not to fix your make-up, or to check how gorgeous you still are. But do you ever look yourself in the eye in order to know yourself better, the way you would look into the eyes of someone you were trying to know better?
It can be difficult for us to look at ourselves beyond the superficial, hair and make-up level. We are used to checking our appearance first of all when we look at ourselves. We rarely look long enough to make a connection.
When you meet someone new, if you want to get to know them better, what do you do? Look at the floor when they speak to you? Look up at the sky in the hope of finding a divine answer? No. You look into their eyes while they speak. You attend to what they are saying. You watch their eyes for the truth in what they are saying. You look for the confirmation of the words they are saying.
We all know when someone lies to us. As children we were used to the impossibility of telling a lie when someone was looking us straight in the eye. And how do we demonstrate early signs of falling in love with someone? We love to spend time looking deeply into their eyes.
So why not do it for ourselves? Probably for both the reasons above.
Firstly, if we look ourselves in the eyes and say “I love and accept you” - we will immediately know if we are telling the truth or not. If we are finding it difficult to say this to ourselves, why? What are the feelings that come up for you if you say “I love and accept you” to yourself in the mirror? Do you hear a critical parent or friend telling you you’re not worth it? Maybe you feel that you are not perfect enough to be loved? It could be that, in place of judgemental others, you have come to be your own harshest critic.
Secondly, looking deeply into our own eyes would mean taking on that critic, or judge or negative voice that we have inside us. It would mean learning to, or being willing to love and accept ourselves. That is often very difficult to do. If we have a (so-far) lifetime of being a certain way (e.g. judged or criticised) it can be scary to change that way of being. We’re used to it.
What would it be like to fall in love with yourself? How would it be to have that warm, deeply contented glow inside? And know that we are the reason for it ourselves? How wonderful would that be?
Here is an NLP exercise that is a really easy and effective technique you can learn and apply every day on any number of problem areas. If you’re anxious about something - try this. If someone gets you really angry - try this. If you have to do something that needs more confidence than you believe you have - try this.
This NLP technique is very useful when you want to change a negative feeling you have about something, or change your approach to something. It’s easy to hear how “If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting on what you’ve always got”, but it’s not always easy to change what we do. Self development requires work and attention, but it doesn’t have to be hard work.
If you have an issue that causes you a problem (e.g. a colleague who “rubs you the wrong way”, or recurring problem that never seems to change for you no matter how many times you tackle it) here is one way of dealing with it:
Picture the problem, whether it be a person or event. Bring it to mind as fully and accurately as you can. Make it as clear as if it was happening now. Give it the colours, sounds, movement, smells etc. that the real situation would have.
When you have an accurate visualization of the problem - change the elements of the picture. So - if the image is big, horribly real-life size, movie-like and loud, then move the picture far, far away. Turn down the volume on the picture. If it was a movie, then make it still. Drain all the colour out of it. Allow the accompanying emotion also move far away, grow paler and quieter.
Notice how much differently you feel about it as a tiny image, far away, black & white, silent and still.
Repeat the process, changing the picture/visualization of the image or event, weakening it, paling it out and allowing your emotional response to it to weaken too.
When you’ve repeated this a few times, test it by bringing to mind the original problem. Now how much better do you feel about it?
You can do this with anything at all. If you have to make a speech or presentation, if you have to face someone who intimidates you, if you have to chair a meeting of your peers, if you need to remove the anxiety you feel at some forthcoming event - you can use this exercise.
The trick is to repeat it as often as you feel the need. Consider it your daily self development boost. Never underestimate the power of such a simple personal improvement technique.
Watch out for “SoundBites of Self Development” on Twitter. Some days it would be great just to have those few words of encouragement, or support for what you’re doing. I’m hoping that Twitter will facilitate that. I can broadcast a message (or send one privately) just 140 characters long. Just long enough for a sentence or two of help or of interest.
Yes, I’ve done it! I’ve decided to try out the phenomenon that is Twitter. If you have any hints, please let me know, because I’m a newbie. My hope is that this may be a way to have a wordwide converstation about self development, NLP, personal development and all things life-coach related.
I attended a lunchtime seminar on Wednesday. Yesterday I set up my profile “MegaPotential“. Sounds flashy, but basically LifePotential, YourPotential, MyPotential were all gone, and I thought WHAT could be left? So - MegaPotential it is!
Already I have connected to a coach in the States -Beth Banning - whose goal is to “offer ideas that promote conscious conversation, inspire conscious action, and create a more conscious world.”
I liked the sound of that so I’m “following” her. I can search for terms like “self development” and scan through all the people who tweet on self improvement issues. For me, it’s like if I wanted to ask something from a group of friends and I stood up in the group and asked my question, or made my statement. With Twitter - the world is my group of friends. When I send a short message, or ask a question, I’m standing up in front of the world and asking for response.
I like the fact that, whereas FaceBook, Bebo, etc. are about linking all your friends and family, Twitter is about finding new friends. I can have conversations with like-minded people all over the globe without having to meet them or know them first. Maybe I will meet up with some of them, someday. Who knows?
So watch out for Soundbites of Self Development, and if I get any from anyone else that are worth passing on, I shall “ReTweet” them.
I’m reliably informed that the term “Self Development” ranks highly in Google search word terms. Good. I think that’s great. Not from a life coaches blogging perspective, but from the point of view of an impressive number of people searching for help with their self development. I do it myself, and I’m proud to say so.
In Ireland we have a rather suspicious approach to needing help. Giving help - we’re great at that. But getting help - that’s not so easy to ask for. I think it’s something to do with the notion that, if we need to get help, first of all something must be wrong and secondly it means we have failed to cope with it ourselves. Maybe it’s an insular thing? Maybe to do with island people having to cope on their own? I don’t know.
I have been helping myself and others to improve our lives for as many years as I can remember. It manifested itself in my twenties when I trained to be a yoga teacher, and continued through training over the years in massage, aromatherapy, Reiki, coaching and NLP to where I am today.
Did self-development start when I was in my twenties? No, but perhaps that was when I noticed that I could be active, rather than passive, about my development. For most of my twenties I suffered appalling panic-attacks. I would have the tight-chested pain, dizziness, sweating, clammy skin, racing heart and be convinced that at any moment I would die. For eight or nine years I suffered this to varying degrees, always thinking that it was just me and that there was no one who could help me. I developed many coping strategies, which I suppose was “enforced” self-development (sounds a bit paradoxical).
When other things in my life at the time caused me to seek help, I was amazed at how the simple act of getting help was more powerful than I could have imagined.
Self development is called such simply because no one else can “do” our self development. But there are many people who can help us to do it for ourselves.
Since that time, I have regularly sought help in areas where I felt I needed outside expertise to make progress in my life and development. Sometimes it was a psychotherapist, other times a hypnotherapist or Reiki practitioner. But always I found that getting outside help gave me some new options, which I could not see for myself.
So, I feel that, whether or not “Self Development” is seen as the new “must have” or not, it doesn’t matter. We are all constantly developing ourselves, our attitudes, our beliefs, our behaviours, our personalities and our potential. We do it whether we plan it or not, whether we are aware of it or not and whether we like it or not. So why not make it a bit easier for ourselves. When we need help, why not seek it out and make the most of it, so that we can make the most of our lives?
