Coaching for Action

Are you wanting to take some action but putting it off for some reason?

Quite often procrastination is caused by some negative thinking such as 'I won't pull it off'.

If you want to overcome this and get on with what you really wish to do then please read on.

First, accept that worry, apprehension, anxiety - even dread and panic - are just mental states that only exist in your head.

Second, recognise your fear when it happens - the feeling in your body, the thoughts of alarm - and verbally describe to yourself what you are feeling.

Even better - write this down as you will then move from emotional to intellectual control of these kinds of negative-thoughts and so start to experience the fear passing. Notice that the awareness that contains fear is itself never fearful.

One technique to help you to overcome all of the subconscious barriers to action, which we assimilate from childhood through to adult life, is to cultivate an inner protector which is highly resourceful.

Perhaps you will develop an inner protector who is reassuring, encouraging, supportive and strong and will  help you stand up to those negative voices in your mind.

It is a realistic, honest, solid, caring teacher or coach who reminds you of the good things about you and your world.

Having an inner protector will help you to draw on your pre-frontal mental capacities to assess the following about the negative thoughts you have:

• What is the chance that the feared event or consequence will happen? 
• How bad would it be? 
• How long would it last? 
• What could I do to cope? 
• Who could help me?

Most fear from expectations is exaggerated as your brain is 'hard-wired' to be negative having developed from a starting point that helped early man to avoid being eaten.

Your feeling fearful on the point of or during attack is acceptable. However, it is not when you are caught up with some carrot or stick where it is unbalancing and unsettling.

So, when a fear arises within you, ask yourself the following questions:

• What options do I actually have? 
• How could I use my inner resources to move forward with what I really want?

It might help you to practise essentialism by asking yourself 'What are the facts?' rather than letting your emotional mind high jack your intellect and make things up.

Not surprisingly, studies have shown that appraising a situation more accurately leads to greater positive emotions which encourage us and fewer of the negative ones which hold us back (Gross and John 2003).

Another technique to help you to move more calmly through your life is finding a refuge which provides you with some sanctuary and protection so you can let your guard down and build your strength.

For example, my refuge is the countryside around my home where I walk our dog and where I find myself being literally refuelled by Nature. It clears my head for the next challenge.

You can have more than one refuge - potential refuges include good company, certain activities (reading, bathing, exercise to name a few), places and intangibles like a sense of who you are.

Please leave your comment on this blog and if you'd like to discuss your own needs at an initial meeting please visit our website at West of England Coaching and Counselling.

Wisdom Coaching

Do you want to be wise and enjoy a peaceful life?

Earlier this week I was helping a client to set her goals for 2012 and my client said one goal she wanted to achieve was to be 'more wise in 2012'.

We went on to explore what this meant for her in specific terms as 'being more wise' means different things to different people.

My client explained that she wanted to 'live more peacefully in her own mind' and 'be able to share this way of being with her family and friends'.

My client wanted us to come up with a list of things she could actually do to achieve this.

We achieved her outcome for the session and my client was happy for me to share her 'Wisdom List' with you.

This may not resonate with you at all - so no promises - but if it does please leave a comment. So here's wishing you more wisdom in 2012:

1. Let Go of The Past - Perhaps by practising literally letting go of in your hands whenever you think of something which has happened in the past that provokes negative thinking or feelings.
   
   
2. Relax to Stay In Control of Things - Breathe in deeply into your tummy - like inflating a balloon - and then breathe out slowly as though deflating your balloon.
   
   
3. Live In The Now - Practise seeing, hearing, feeling, touching and smelling what is happening around you right now, clearly using all of your senses preferably.
   
   
4. Be Positive and Optimistic - Rather than negatively forecasting the day (the presentation won't go well, for instance) say to yourself 'I wonder what will happen today and I am curious to find out'.
   
   
5. Be Kind to Yourself and Others
   
   
6. Be Enlightened - Be grateful for what you have that is truly important to you.

For all of your coaching and counselling support needs please get in touch via our website at West of England Coaching and Counselling.

Solving The January Blues By Setting New Goals

January is a bleak time of year for many people, driven by factors such as the weather, the post Christmas credit card statement and returning to work after the festive break.

For others, January signals a new year and a time to set goals for the year ahead.

As human beings we're naturally goal-driven and setting and achieving goals is motivational.

But some of us struggle with setting goals because we feel life we're in something of a rut come the start of a new year.

Before you give up, there are a few things you can do to get yourself in the mindset of wanting to set and achieve some goals in the 11 remaining months of 2012.

You can learn to see yourself in a more positive, balanced way by carrying out the following exercises:

• Listing your positive qualities - Brainstorm all the things you like about yourself. Are you smart? Kind? Creative? Loyal? Funny?
  
  What would others say are your good qualities? Include your talents, skills, and achievements.
  
  Also think about bad qualities you do not have and do not want.
• Focus on what you do like about your life - Appreciate the things you like about yourself and your life.
  
  What elements of your work, personal and social life are going well?
• Challenge negative self-talk - When you catch yourself being self-critical or pessimistic, stop and challenge the negative thought.
  
  Ask yourself - Is this helpful thinking? Does it make me feel good? What evidence is there for the thought?
  
  Then change the thought to something believable and positive, for example, 'I feel I am gradually learning about talking through how I feel'.
• Be kind to yourself - For example, have a massage, soak in a candlelit bath or do exercise you enjoy.
• Develop some healthy beliefs - For example, ‘I take care of myself by eating healthy food 75% of the time and by exercising 3times per week' or 'I make a written worry list with possible solutions before I go to bed so I can sleep'.
• Keep a gratitude and achievement diary - Use it daily to record the little things that bring you little bits of happiness each day such as accomplishing something at work, laughing with friends, eating a fresh meal or going for a walk.

Wishing you fulfilment in 2012.


If you find this blog to be useful please leave a comment and if you would like help and support in any area of your life please get in touch with me via our website at West of England Coaching and Counselling. 

Visualisation Is Key To Making Your Changes Stick

Do you ever wonder why that despite your best intentions the changes you intended to make, started to make or made have not been sustained?


For example, changing a way of working, being a healthy weight or going to bed at a reasonable time.

This is such a common problem for a number of clients I have recently started working with, I decided to write a blog about a technique which I have found invaluable in helping make these kinds of changes stick.

That technique is Visualisation.

The idea is that you visualise what you do want - i.e. focus on what you want - and your subconscious mind then knows what you want and can help by coming up with ways to achieve your goal.

You can do this on your own or with help and you will know what you need and what works for you intuitively.

For example, if you have always tended to 'think in pictures' this may come easier for you and you may find that you can be self-sufficient in terms of visualisation.

On the other hand, you may be used to thinking in terms of words or feelings and may need some help with this technique.

Here is a practical exercise for you to try and something that I do very often at the start of each day - even before getting out of bed.

Close your eyes to help you to focus and imagine you are watching a film of you as you want to be - for example, at your target weight and size.

Watch the other you doing the things that you easily do in your daily life, such as, getting dressed, walking the children to school and so on.

Imagine this other you also doing the things you want to be able to do, such as, eating when hungry, enjoying moving around regularly and being in control of your emotions and press your mental pause button each time you start to feel upset.

Notice how this other you moves, carries themselves, looks and how other people respond.

Then step into the film taking the new behaviours into yourself.

Go through a typical day with the new thinking and behaviours and consider how things are going to be better now.

The key to successfully getting change to stick is to repeat this daily until you achieve your goal and then as often as you feel is necessary.

Each repetition of your visualisation creates a neural pathway in the brain with each further repetition reinforcing it.

In the previous example, as you think of yourself as a healthy weight and size you are sending signals to your unconscious mind to behave as a healthy person, with lots of new habits that help you to maintain that.

Visualisation of you having achieved your goals is very powerful in helping you to achieve them as well as sustaining them and this has to be a worthwhile exercise.

Please let me know how you get on by leaving a comment and get in touch if you would like help with achieving and maintaining those changes which are important to you via our website at West of England Coaching and Counselling.

For Peace of Mind

Perhaps the greatest wisdom I have come across is how to simply and easily achieve peace of mind by focusing on the present.

Yes, there is and will always be pain in this world but if we choose to focus on the negative consequences of pain and not on taking action to achieve the best possible outcome then we will be overcome with anxiety, anger or depression.


According to experts, when we are anxious, we lose intellectual control and our 7-year-old emotional mind takes over - Not great for resolving adult problems and issues.

From my previous blogs you will know that when we create negative thought patterns through negative introspection about the past - i.e. 'I should not have done x, I should have done y, I should have said x, I should not have said y' - or negatively forecasting the future - i.e.'That will not go well, I will fail, I will not have enough time etc.' - we become anxious because our minds do not distinguish between our thoughts and reality.

It makes sense then to think about happy memories when we reflect on the past and - when planning the future - if we choose to predict outcomes to predict positive ones.

This way we avoid anxiety and stay in intellectual control, behaving in a way synonymous with our real adult age.

I tell clients that if this is too difficult then avoid thinking about the past or - if possible - thinking about it 'being as it should be' and factually.

In terms of the future, by all means plan but avoid negative forecasting outcomes - 'If I start dating again I will get hurt again' or 'If I take on that project I will fail'.

By all means take action to mitigate getting hurt - by taking things slowly for example - or to prevent project failure such as proper planning and stakeholder consultation.

It's the same with negative thoughts - we all have them but if you are smart you won't analyse them because it's by analysing negative thoughts that we create anxiety.

This all leads to a really obvious idea that by focusing more on the present, being in the now and mindful, will create greater peace of mind than trying to master good mental habits in relation to the past and the future.

Generally, we do not worry about today. We worry about past actions and future behaviours and issues.

By imagining that you have only today, there is far less scope for angst. By all means plan tomorrow and leave it at that.

We are only ever truly alive in the present and we do not have a crystal ball. Most of the things we worry about never happen anyway.

So enjoy right now and - if you are not enjoying today - take steps to enjoy it more such as incorporating things you love doing into your day and - if possible - finding work that you do enjoy.

I hope that blog creates new insights and that whatever your situation you are able to incorporate some of these ideas into your daily life.

If you would like to know more please visit our website at West of England Coaching and Counselling and get in touch.

Improving Your Thinking

How do you think that your core beliefs and 'rules for life' affect your thinking as events happen?

I was recently working with a client who in many contexts in life is positive, pretty flexible and easy going. Then she was involved in a serious non-fault car accident.

After the car accident my client experienced post traumatic stress symptoms including regular day and nigh-time flashbacks following which the same sorts of questions came up in her mind - 'How could that driver be allowed on the road?' and 'I cannot trust other drivers anymore'.

My client's relevant 'rules for life' relating to this were quite rigid e.g. only competent drivers should be allowed on the road - because of course this is not the case and despite the characteristics of the driver - including their being regarded as 'old' - this was a car 'accident'.

These rules for life and core beliefs were causing negative thinking and in turn negative emotions and communication whenever she thought about the accident and in talking with others.

This was reinforcing and compounding negative thoughts in her brain and eventually, unable to control these negative thought and emotions, she came to see me.

As well as negativity around the car accident incident my client had also started thinking about other negative experiences from way back in her life that had seen her rules and core beliefs undermined in some way.

We know that this is the subconscious mind's way of protecting us and causing a 'fight or flight response' - responding with the primitive response patterns of anger, anxiety or depression and sometimes two or even three of these.

Once we identified the contextual core beliefs and rules for life that were negatively impacting my clients' thinking she was able to develop more enabling beliefs and flex her rules in this area somewhat.

We then found that her awareness level negative automatic thoughts occurred less and less and within a few sessions she felt calmer about what had happened to her and wise having found out how her mind worked and how to manage and control it.

Anxiety, stress and feeling low or depressed are lonely disabling feelings which you do not have to bear.

If you would like support in addressing any emotions you are suffering with please get in touch via West of England Coaching and Counselling.

Detox Your Mind with Positive Thinking

Positive thinking about the past, present and future improves your quality of life - suddenly everything seems easier, calmer, better somehow.

So what are the keys to thinking positively about the past, present and future?

In terms of the past, aim to focus on the good things that have happened to you and on the good things that you have achieved - for example, an adventure with friends, your children or passing an exam.

In terms of the future, practise visualising the life that you want. What resources do you already have that you could use to achieve this life? What resources do you need to acquire?

In terms of the present, we can increase our positivity by simply smiling and increasing our awareness of the wonderful things around us.

Whenever anything goes wrong or is annoying aim to find 3 ways to make it positive. For example, I miss the train and will be late for work:

1. I will phone my boss and tell them when to expect me
2. I will shop for dinner until the next train is due
3. I will cook my partner a lovely dinner as a treat

I catch the next train and feel good.

Finally, a gratitude and achievement journal is a great way to stay positively focused.

Simply record in writing each day 3 things about your life and surroundings that you are greatful for in the morning and in the evening 3 things you have achieved.

For example, in the AM:

• I am grateful for the smell of coffee as I wake
• I am grateful for feeling well
• I am grateful for my child for making me laugh

And then in the PM:

• I sorted out all my paperwork
• I went to the gym for an hour and had amazing sauna afterwards
• I caught up with colleagues for lunch at the new bistro

Over time your brain will prompt you to think about what you are grateful for and what you might achieve and have achieved before you are consciously aware of it.

Please let feel free to pass on your comments on this blog? Has it inspired you at all?

Alternatively, please take the opportunity to visit my website West of England Coaching and Counselling as I am passionate about improving lives using our mind and would love to hear from you.