The evidence is overwhelming - you become what you practice.  So to become confident you need to practice confidence, but what does that consist of?

In this article I’m going to give you some simple skills that you can practice daily to build your confidence.  These techniques should be seen as stepping stones in your becoming a naturally confident person.  As you achieve success with the techniques here I urge you to move on to develop yourself as a naturally confident person.  Wouldn’t it be good to be naturally confident rather than needing to apply techniques every day to remain confident? To actually be confident from the core of your being and knowing this confidence is there?

I have a suggestion about how you can pay attention to the changes that these techniques will bring.  First - let’s talk about super tankers - those huge vessels weighing hundreds of thousands of tonnes.  If they want to change direction it takes time.  It takes tens of miles for them to reverse their direction.

For you to change from a person with a lack of confidence to a person of confidence it’s going to take time.  From moment to moment the changes will be quite small, yet accumulated over time this change will be dramatic. So here is my suggestion.

Each time you notice yourself being just a little - even the smallest fraction - more confident, celebrate!  Be grateful, accept it and feel good.

Sometimes my clients focus only on wanting to be 100% confident, failing to notice these small incremental changes.  They then become disillusioned and don’t have the motivation to complete their change.  Please don’t make this mistake.  Celebrate and be grateful for even the smallest increase in your confidence levels.

Now to the techniques, the daily practices that will transform your confidence levels.

The first technique is changing what you say to yourself inside your head.

Yes we all talk to ourselves. That’s okay, it’s only when you talk to yourself out loud that it can be a problem! Most of us spend a lot of our time talking negatively to ourselves, saying how we got it wrong, we’re stupid and so on.  Think of it this way, if someone else talks to you like that, would you hang around them?  Of course not, so let’s change how we talk to ourselves.

As you catch yourself saying negative things about yourself, stop and say it again in a positive way.

The second technique for change is to make big pictures.

Whenever you think about things you’re creating some kind of mental image.  Usually you hardly notice it, yet it’s still there.  Sometimes you make pictures of things you want to do and they’re small, dark and tiny.  That’s hardly motivating is it?  It’s like watching a TV programme on an small, old, black-and-white television.  Compare that to going to a cinema with a massive screen, full-colour and deep, rich surround-sound.

As you think about things you want to do, take the time to make those pictures brighter, louder, panoramic.  Make sure you’re in that picture looking through your own eyes.  Turn up the brightness and colour, put motion in and a compelling soundtrack. Just for the fun of it, try it once right and notice how much more excited you feel about that thought.

A handy tip is to ensure that when you have negative thoughts, you make them tiny, black-and-white, still, dark and with no sound.  It’s amazing how much less feeling you’ll have about them.

The third technique is to ‘walk the winners way.’

When you look around the room, people who are confident seem to stand out.  They stand differently, they move differently.  They seem to use their body in a different way.

Make a point of observing this for yourself. What you’ll find is that if you stand and move in that same way, you’ll feel more confident.  At first you may have to do this in front of a mirror to get it right.

Take the time to each day to regularly stand, move and sit like a confident person. This will start to programme your body for confidence.

The fourth and final daily technique to boost your confidence is to take a risk.

Each day take one risk that you’ve not taken before.  Initially this can be really small, perhaps selecting a different item on the menu in the restaurant at work, or smiling at the person in the shop you buy your paper from..

Taking risks is like building muscles, you have to slowly increase the load.  Start small and build up.  As you become comfortable with tiny risks you can move on to slightly larger ones.

By practicing these four techniques every day, within a month they will significantly boost your confidence level. They’ll put you on a journey to becoming a truly, naturally confident person, so use them as a stepping stone towards this.

Think of it as trying to push a car.  At first it’s very difficult to get it rolling, once it starts it’s much easier.  So once you start the process of changing to become a truly confident person it’s going to be easier to keep it going.  Don’t let the car stop rolling; keep the change in yourself going.

You don’t need to be alone in keeping this change going.  Friends may be able to help you.  Also there are many professionals around who are experienced in helping others make these big shifts.

[tags]Confidence, motivation, article, success, course, feeling, lack of confidence, confident person, confidence levels, incremental changes, moment to moment, suggestion, programme, [/tags]

Have you ever met someone who seems to be incredibly confident in a way that feels so natural and right?  Someone who doesn’t need to shout, push and get all hyped up, they just exude confidence that’s almost infectious?

There are numerous effective techniques for boosting your confidence when you need it.  However, they’re just that! They’re techniques that, when you stop applying them, they stop working.  So the question must be: “Is there a way of building confidence into the core of your being?”  Or perhaps, “How can you transform yourself into a naturally confident person?”

The good news is that it can be done and in a way it’s a lot easier than you think. On the other hand it’s a lot more difficult than you think. If you want an instant fix then you won’t find it here.  When you’re looking at such a profound change within yourself it’s not going to happen in a few minutes, days or even weeks.

If you take as an ultimate truth in your life, the core principle that ‘we become what we practice’, it will transform everything you do.

To have success in anything in a reliable way, requires a combination of three things: knowledge, skills and positive habits.  Today, knowledge is more abundant than it has ever been.  It’s more accessible and easily understood than at any other time in history.  If knowledge were enough then we’d all be truly successful.

Skills and positive habits take time to develop.  As people demand more instant gratification, immediate solutions or dramatic changes, the development of skills and positive habits seem to become more difficult.  Nothing has changed, just expectations.  Both skills and positive habits require practice, discipline and repeated practice.

A major study by Oxford University found that the only common theme or trait shared by talented people was the commitment to frequent and regular practice - whether that was sport, music or anything else.

What’s interesting is that if you look at people at the peak in their field, while they’re active in that field they also put in the time to practice.  When they retire they tend to stop doing the practice.

Practice is the price to be paid for exceptional achievement.

Now let’s turn our attention back to natural confidence.  As the title of this article says, it comes from knowing who you are (that’s who you are right now) and being comfortable with it.  This is not to say that everything has to be right about you.  It just says you have to be comfortable with where you are right now and how you’re progressing through life.

You’ve probably heard a thousand times that life is like a journey.  Have you ever taken the time to really understand this analogy?

When you’re on a journey you’re never in the same place twice unless you get lost and wander about.  Isn’t this a bit like life where you often keep coming back to the same place rather than moving forward?  The same mistakes, the same hopes and desires that become dashed?  Perhaps there’s a similarity here as well.

A journey is about going from here to there.  However, at any point in time you’re neither here nor there, you’re on the journey.  Have you ever been on a journey where your focus is purely on your destination?  If the journey is a long one, then what you may have found is that your energy for the journey is decreased because the destination seems so far away. This can lead to strong emotions such as frustration, anger, resentment or even hopelessness.  While these may be extreme, think of it this way, many people who start on journeys cut them short because of these powerful feelings.

Think about marathon runners.  If their focus is the finish line then the race (the journey) can become too difficult.  The pain and exhaustion in front of them can become overwhelming.  The only way to successfully run a marathon is to take one step at a time.

When you’re on a long journey, if you take the approach of being comfortable with where you are on your journey right now, knowing that you will get to your destination, then the journey will be easier and more enjoyable.  The same is true of your life.

I’m comfortable with where I am right now in my life.  There are lots of things I want to change, and if you ask my girlfriend she can give you an even longer list!  However, I’m comfortable with where I am right now with all my imperfections, knowing that they will change and improve.

So there’s the first skills practice for becoming naturally confident.  Become comfortable with where you are at right now with all its inconsistencies and inadequacies, knowing that over time things will change and get better.

The next component of natural confidence is fear, or rather lack of it.  Let me put it a different way.  People generally talk about lack of confidence which, in many cases, is no more than fear.  So if you can eradicate the fear from your life you’ll have confidence.

To my mind fear comes in three types.  There’s fear of physical harm, there’s fear of scarcity and there’s fear of being found out.  Perhaps it will help if I expand on these a little

If a hungry tiger walked into the room you’re in right now, then it’s appropriate for you to have fear of physical harm.  That’s pretty clear.  This is the flight or fight response of nature.  It’s short-lived and is in response to genuine threats.  Fortunately today, most of us never encounter this.

Fear of scarcity is the fear that drives us to do things right now.  I have to find that life partner because there aren’t enough available people out there.  I have to work 60 or 70 hour weeks to get the sales because there might not be any more customers in the future.  I suspect this type of fear comes from the days when we were dependent on nature and where there could be feast or famine.  Today, fortunately, we hardly ever suffer from this.  At least in the West we now live in an incredibly abundant world where scarcity hardly exists except that we create in our own minds.

The big fear for most people is the fear of being found out.  This is the fear that other people may see us for who we actually are - some sort of fake, inadequate or worthless.  It’s what drives some people to exaggerate because they don’t feel good enough as they are.  It’s what makes us say yes we understand something even when we don’t, because we don’t want to appear foolish.

The fear of being found out is probably one of the strongest fears we regularly have.  It seems to be a major cause of stress for many people, somehow feeling we should be better or we’re not up to the task as we are.

You’re probably ahead of me already.  As you become comfortable with where you are right now in life and accept it, this fear will evaporate.  And since fear is directly related to confidence, as your fear levels drop, your confidence will rise and you’ll become more naturally confident.
The next component of natural confidence is your belief in yourself.  Studies have shown that past performance is not necessarily a good way to predict future performance. Poor performance previously can be the result of lack of belief in yourself. But if you start to believe in yourself and your skills and abilities, it’s likely you’ll succeed in the future.  In other words, whether you believe you can’t or you believe you can - you’re probably right – because that belief will determine the outcome.
That’s a very good reason to always maintain a strong belief in yourself wouldn’t you say?

So where does this belief in yourself come from?  For some time it’s been observed that one of the functions of the mind is to prove itself right.  You’ve probably had a discussion (argument) with someone with a different point of view – let’s say someone in customer services.  You see things one way and they see it another.  As you present the facts, you each interpret them in your own way.

What’s happening is that you’re each interpreting the evidence to support your own belief.  You’re probably well aware of some of the very strange beliefs that people have - like the world is flat or we never landed on the moon etc.  These of course stand out, but what about those smaller, internal beliefs such as believing you’re not worthy, you’re not good enough and so on? Your mind sets out to interpret the evidence around you to prove to you that this belief is true.

This leads us to question of whether we can change these beliefs and, if so, how?  Let’s say that you believe you can’t speak in public.  You may well have spent years gathering evidence to prove you can’t. But now, just for fun, imagine you believe completely the opposite.  Make a list of all the evidence that says you can speak in public.

You’ve probably been with a group of friends and spoken out about something in front of them.  You may have attended a meeting where you were in the audience, and you spoke out on a particular point.  If you spend a little while I’m confident you’ll build a long list supporting the fact that you do already have the ability to speak in public.

As your belief in your ability changes, then it becomes worth your while developing the skills to do it even better.  So, with the theme of this article being natural confidence, being comfortable with where you are right now in your ability to speak in public means you can become confident about it.  Then as you do speak in public, you can develop the skills to become even better.

While on the subject of the mind proving itself right, I’ve got a question for you.  How do you feel about other people who show natural confidence?  If you’re uncomfortable with them, resentful of them, or envious of them, what do you think is going on in your mind, given that it always wants to prove itself right,

The fact is that those negative feelings towards these people would extend to you too. The mind doesn’t want that to happen so if you become naturally confident, the mind will have a problem.

On the contrary, if you decided to feel good about others who are naturally confident, then in your mind’s quest to be always right, the subconscious part of your mind will support you in becoming naturally confident yourself.

So to sum up, natural confidence comes from being comfortable with who you are right now in your journey through life.  It takes skills and practice to build this and some acceptance of where you are right now, and by going out to find the evidence that you have confidence, your beliefs will change.

[tags]Confidence, article, solution, life, success, feelings, energy, fear, building confidence, lack of confidence, practice discipline, core principle, confident person, oxford university, profound change, practice, performance, exhaustion, frustration, belief, [/tags]

Depression can hit any of us at any time. If you work for yourself you can’t allow depression to get in the way. This is why self- treatment for depression can be an important tool in your business life.

First off, there’s no magic cure! Depression - or being low, down or however else you describe it - can hit you at any time with no apparent reason. The way back to a normal, energetic and happy life can also vary, depending on personalities and circumstances.

Here are some of the major techniques I teach my coaching clients to use. Among them you are likely to find effective solutions for you.

Firstly, Exercise! Yes I know everybody tells you this - it’s supposedly the answer for everything. What exercise does is to burn off excess adrenalin and stress hormones. “But surely self-employed people don’t get stressed!” I hear you cry. We love having every problem landing on our shoulders don’t we?

So how much exercise do you have to do? Although there’s no specific answer I can give you right now, a guideline would be around 20 minutes a day. This doesn’t have to be done at the gym, it can just be brisk walking. How you work out what’s right for you is how you feel. You may find you don’t need to do it every day, but do pay attention to what’s happening, and after a couple of weeks you’re likely to find the right amount that works best for you and fits in with your lifestyle.

Daily laughter - and I don’t mean when the Inland Revenue slaps you with a ridiculous bill! Laughter releases good hormones into your bloodstream. In fact smiling goes a long way towards it.

These good hormones make you feel good, relax you, and allow you to be happier. So if you have daily laughter, what you’ll find is that things get easier, you’re less stressed, you become more productive, and your energy levels rise.

Speak to yourself nicely! Yes we all talk to ourselves inside our heads. It’s only when we talk out loud and people start to look at us strangely that it becomes a problem!

If you’re normal, and odds are that you are (sorry about that) sometimes you’ll find yourself talking to yourself in less than charitable terms. If somebody else talked to you in the way you sometimes talk to yourself, you’d certainly get annoyed with them and you wouldn’t want that person around.

Take the time to change what you say to yourself. Instead of saying “ I’ve failed at that” try saying “I’ve learned how not to do that now so I can do it differently next time.” Instead of getting annoyed with yourself, you could talk to yourself about all the things you can do well.

Practice mindfulness. This is what we’re seeing happen more and more in the business world. Mindfulness is about paying attention to your own thinking. After all - you are not your thoughts. You can change your thoughts and by just observing them you have the choice to change what you’re thinking.

Mindfulness has been shown to be one of the most effective approaches for preventing the re-occurrence of bouts of depression. Just find somebody who can teach you how to do it in the right way for you.

Eradicate overwhelm. Some people can find themselves very depressed when they feel overwhelmed. In simple terms, to deal with overwhelm only do what you can do and get somebody else to do the rest - but first - make sure that the thing actually needs doing! It always amazes me how many tasks that seem so desperately urgent, turn out later to be irrelevant. It would be nice to think carefully about these tasks before they consume our energy.

Build a compelling future. If you take the time to build a compelling future for yourself, you’ll end up doing what you want to do, in a way you want to do it, and enjoying it. This will start to feed energy into your system. If you take the time to put the plan together, determining how you’re going to get from here to there, then this will give it a sense of reality for you.

Having a strong positive view of the future and knowing how you can get there can be one of the most powerful approaches to eradicating depression.

Good Nutrition can play an important part in self-treatment for depression. Numerous research studies have shown that things like fish oil, taken regularly, can be as effective as a mild anti-depressant. Because they’re not foreign chemicals in the body, they don’t have negative side-effects.

Another traditional self- treatment for depression is St John’s Wort - sometimes called the Sunshine Herb. Once again, numerous studies have shown that self-medication with St John’s Wort can be as effective as many of the milder anti-depressants. An important part of this strategy is self-medication, since when people feel depressed they can also feel loss of control. Controlling when supplements are taken can clearly put them back in control.

I appreciate that this is an incredibly brief article on some very powerful self-treatment techniques for depression. Hopefully it will act as a signpost to show you where you can look for further help.

[tags]Self-treatment for depression, treatment for depression, stress hormones, cure depression, self treatment, happy life, business life, adrenalin, lifestyle, energy levels, energy, Mindfulness, problem, guideline, stress, Depression, coaching, [/tags]

As a personal coach one of the most common requests I receive from people is to help them to build confidence. At first glance this is quite understandable, after all, if people felt more confident they’d do more things and get more out of life. So absolutely - building confidence makes sense.

You may well have read one of my other articles where I state that confidence doesn’t exist! What does exist is lack of confidence. Confidence is, in fact, a natural state of being, yet people believe they don’t have it. Sure there’ll be some extreme situations where confidence isn’t evident so an extra boost is needed, but most of us spend most of our lives in fairly ordinary territory where the situations are very familiar.

What I suggest is actually going on is that those people lack confidence. This negative feeling has built up over many years of conditioning, and by the time they reach adulthood, much of this conditioning has become self-imposed. Now I’m not proposing to start on some form of analysis here, I’m far more interested in finding a solution for them and everyone else who needs it.

Just a side note: because you understand the cause of something it isn’t necessarily the same as having the solution. A simple example will demonstrate what I mean. Let’s say you fall out of a tree and break a leg. The cause is simple - you fell out of the tree. So how do you want to repair the leg? Is the answer to put you back in the tree? No! The solution is to go to hospital and get treated. Do you see now that the cause and the solution different?

The same is true for lack of confidence; you can spend hours, days, even years analysing why you lack confidence. Generally though this isn’t going to help you acquire the confidence you’re looking for.

At this point I think it’s useful to briefly explain habits, what they are and how they work for us. We have thousands of useful and positive habits in our life. A simple example is that when you leave your house you automatically lock your door. Do you remember those times you walk away and you’re not sure whether you locked it or not? Well you probably did because you were on autopilot!

A life saving habit is, for example, when you’re walking across a road and a big vehicle comes bearing down on you at great speed. You leap to the pavement and safety. Why on earth should you do that? There’s nothing genetic that says pavements are safe, but it’s something you’ve learned. It’s a habit. It will save your life. Habits can be good.

Now the question becomes, “So how do we build good habits?” Well, the answer is straight-forward, you just repeat the same thing again and again over time. If there’s emotion attached to the habit you’ll learn faster. Once you have the habit built in it can be a little difficult to change it. Some would say impossible, I don’t know about that – but let me give you an example.

Clasp your hands in front of you and just notice which thumb is on top. It actually doesn’t matter which one it is, just pay attention please. Now switch your two thumb positions so the other one is on top. This feels strange doesn’t it? This is what it feels like when you don’t follow a habit.

Changing which thumb is on top is unlikely to change your life. However, if something as simple as this has an uncomfortable feeling associated with it, can you see why it can be so difficult to change some negative habits? I’ve done this exercise with the thumbs so many times with so people, that for me now it’s almost arbitrary which one goes on top because I no longer feel the difference. So the habit I had is more or less broken. We can apply similar techniques to help you build a habit of confidence.

Let’s return to a lack of confidence and the reason it’s become a habit. It’s likely that during your lifetime so far, situations have come up and you’ve chosen not to be confident about them. Yes I really mean that. It may not have been as conscious as that, but what probably happened is that a new opportunity presented itself and you chose not to give it a go. You possibly made something up in your head about what could go wrong or why you wouldn’t enjoy it etc. It doesn’t matter what the excuse was, the example still stands.

Every day opportunities arise, and if you repeatedly decide not to take them up because it doesn’t feel good, then this starts to become a habit. You start to say no to everything; you’re starting to lay down the habit. Well surely confidence is largely about saying yes to things?

Years go by and as more new possibilities come to you, you automatically fall back on habits. After all, it takes a little energy to resist a habit, remember the thumbs? So you choose not to do something, not to explore, not to step into something new. Now you’re in a situation where new things come up and you don’t feel confident enough to try. What a surprise!

We can reverse this process and put you on a path of having a habit of confidence rather than a habit of un-confidence. There are two parts to this.

First - let’s start by interrupting the old negative habits. The habit of saying no is a habit of having a lack of confidence. This is a straightforward process, it just requires that you’re kind, gentle and accepting of yourself. Change will take time, but being aware of that means you can give yourself permission to take the time you need to make the changes. How long does it take? That’s very difficult to say, but the timescale is measured in weeks rather than hours.

The place to start is after the very next time you feel a lack of confidence. The time you want to say no to something new, or you choose not to do something different. All I ask you to do is to notice the event and what you chose to do.

Repeat this every time this happens. Trust me - this will happen tens of times a day. Simple examples like when you go out for a meal and decide not to choose a new item on the menu. Instead you go for the same dish you always have. I’m not asking you to change. I’m just asking you to observe what happens. This is very important so I’ll explain it why.

As you start the simple practice of observing, what most people report is that after a while they start to notice during the incident that they’re doing it. As they’re looking down at the menu and seeing new items, they notice how they feel and the fact they’re not choosing them. Again – I’m asking you to just observe. Please keep doing what you’ve always done because this is important.

What has happened in this phase is that your point of noticing has moved from after the event to during the event.

As time passes you’ll find that the point at which you notice you’re exercising your choice to have a lack of confidence, is getting earlier and earlier in the incident. In other words, it’s getting nearer to the start. Remember this is just an exercise in observing. I’m asking you to still stay the same.

Eventually you reach a point where you’re aware of your thinking before the incident. Now you’re at position of choice. Because you’re going to be aware of your thinking patterns before the automatic habit takes over, you’re going to have a choice about whether to follow it or not. This is all part of becoming mindful of your own thought processes.

It’s one of the many reasons why mindfulness is so powerful in helping people deal with major life issues such as confidence, stress, procrastination and so on. It’s also why I’m using it more with my clients now. It puts them in control quicker and more permanently than just doing techniques to them.

You now understand the process we used in the exercise above, so let’s try a little theory.

All of us have a level of change that we’re prepared to accept and a level of change that we’ll resist. Some people have high limits, some have lower. In the above exercise all I’m asking for is observation. By asking you not to make changes, you stay below the resistance level.

By staying below the resistance level your mind will allow the new process in. This will enable the change to occur because it’s not threatening who you are. These are very small changes. The only change being asked is one of observation.

As I mentioned earlier there are two processes we can use. The one above is designed to interfere with the old habits that create lack of confidence. Now let’s turn our attention to building new habits of confidence.

To save you the time of working out what to do, while I think there’s probably enough information above for you to get the idea, I will still lay it out here.

I want you to find the smallest, tiniest, the most imperceptibly minute areas where you can say yes to something that you would have said no to in the past. An example might be something as simple as sitting in a different chair when you eat your meal. I’m looking for changes that are so small you won’t resist them.

A little warning here. Some people feel they have to really challenge themselves, to push themselves to the limit. Sure there’s a place for that, but if you want to make long-lasting changes to habits, this is not the way to do it. Whatever you resist persists. So by forcing, fighting and trying to overcome, all you’ll be doing in effect is strengthening the negative habit.

Please trust me on this point. It’s the smallness, the almost insignificance of the things you’re doing that are the real power.

Now back to the building the new habits.

Once you become familiar and comfortable with the small situations, then move on to slightly larger ones. You’re gradually building from the strong base of positive habits.

Allow yourself time, it may take a year or more until you can move up to those major life areas that you feel you need to change. By taking the time it will be permanent change. Simple tricks and techniques to give you temporary confidence will wear off. And what’s worse, what comes with them is a sense of failure. This constant failing itself then becomes a habit which stops you moving forward.

Giving yourself time to make permanent behavioural changes is the most precious thing you can do for yourself.

[tags] lack confidence, building confidence, lack of confidence, personal coach, feeling, opportunity, exercise, autopilot, habit, life, lifetime, emotion, Habits, excuse, change[/tags]

Most people don’t know that it’s possible to reduce the property taxes on their personal residence.

In fact, not only is it possible, but it is relatively easy, contrary to what you might imagine.

But it isn’t quite as easy as a property los dolses walking into the tax assessor’s office, informing him or her that you think your taxes are outrageously high, and expecting a reduction on the spot.

On the other hand, if you are armed with the right information, i.e., data that properly supports your demand, and you take the proven approach described in this book, you’ll have an excellent chance of getting the reduction that you think you deserve. The time you spend gathering the necessary information and preparing your los dolses properties, usually between six and ten hours, will be well worth your effort.

Not every homeowner with property villamartincan get a property tax reduction–because his or her taxes may not be out of line. But studies have shown that in the case of about 60 percent of America’s households, there is sufficient evidence to warrant a tax reduction. There are a wide variety of reasons that could help to justify one.

For example, there might be arithmetic errors in the tax records, the age of your residence may be grossly incorrect in the records, you may own a one-story house but be taxed for a two-story house, the dimensions of your land may be wrong in the tax records, or you may not have been given an exemption (as a veteran, for example) to which you are entitled.

This article on how to stop procrastination is intended to outline an approach based on who you are. Procrastination, motivation, core values (the things that are most important to you), and your dreams and desires are all intertwined. Let me give you an example.

Imagine your life was just full of the things that are most important to you and are passionate about. Everything you did you loved doing and are excited about and you’re making a difference in the world. Do you think you’d need an alarm clock to get out of bed? Or do you think perhaps you’d leap out each day when you finish sleeping, to get on with what you really want to do?

When you only do what you want to do, then procrastination isn’t an issue. May I suggest that when you find yourself procrastinating, it’s because the life you’re currently living isn’t in alignment with who you are?

Sometimes new clients who come to me say they’ve set clear and precise goals, yet they’re procrastinating about doing what has to be done. These people feel that because they’ve gone to the lengths of setting out precise goals and working things out in detail, this is what they really want. But this isn’t necessarily true.

It’s quite possible to go through detailed goal setting (and there are many strategies and formulae for this) but it’s rare that these address who you are at a deep level. Who you are does tend to get a little buried over time but it’s actually quite easy to uncover it and start bringing it to life. However, many goal-setting strategies out there are no more than project management.

In the business world a project manager and a visionary leader are both important – but both are also different. Without a vision the project has no heart. This is true of your life.

If you become clear about who you are and what dreams and desires you have in alignment with that, then goal setting becomes less important. You find yourself naturally doing things that need to be done.

There are many techniques and strategies available to help you temporarily overcome procrastination. And for sure they have their value. This will be especially true as you transform your life from something that you didn’t design into something that is in alignment with you. This transition period will require some gentle guidance and some effective techniques.

As procrastination disappears from your life, then stress levels will drop. This is what I have referred to elsewhere as ‘working in the gap.’ That’s the gap between where you think life is right now for you, and where you feel it should be.

Procrastination then can be a very good tool for highlighting that what you’re doing isn’t quite yet in alignment with who you are. Procrastination also has another use in giving you valuable information about yourself.

If there’s something you’re not doing and you’re struggling and unhappy with this, then perhaps there’s some type of block. Sometimes it may feel like driving a car with one foot on the brake and the other on the accelerator. For some reason you’re keeping your foot on the brake.

Now it doesn’t matter why you have your foot on the brake, the question is - how do you take it off? (A note of caution here: there seems to be a natural human tendency to want to analyse why things are the way they are. This, of course, could be interesting, but quite often when it comes to personal change, analysing doesn’t help us make the transition required.)

Let me give you an example. We’ll say you’re climbing a tree and let’s say that, unknown to you, one of the branches is rotten. As you put your weight on it the branch breaks and you fall and break a leg.

The broken leg is now your problem or block. Analysis shows the cause was that you fell out of a tree. However, would putting you back in the tree fix your broken leg? Of course not! The solution to a broken leg is to go to hospital and get it treated. The cause of a problem and the solution to a problem can be very different, so even when you know the cause of the problem that doesn’t necessarily mean you have a solution.

When blocks are causing procrastination it can be very valuable to have someone ask you some simple questions to help you find a route around that block or, even better, to remove the block altogether. It’s likely that, because you’ve been living with this block for so long, you’re too close and can’t see the route for yourself. A good friend who can be impartial about your situation may be all you need to assist you at this stage.

In summary, if you want to stop procrastination then you need to look at the two areas it could be highlighting for you. Firstly, are you living a life in alignment with who you are? Secondly, what blocks and limitations do you need to navigate around?

[tags]core values, motivation, procrastination, dreams and desires, how to stop procrastination, goal setting, article, problem, solution, business, life, heart, [/tags]

More and more often, people are looking for stress relief. Many are searching for the magic pill or potion, the relaxation CD or whatever they think will give them the stress relief they’re looking for.

However, sometimes you have to look within, and that need not be a scary place to go.

After many years of working with individuals to help them attain stress relief, I started to notice some patterns. For sure there are myriads of causes of stress. However, one particular pattern seems to repeat over and over again.

For many of my personal clients I noticed that stress was caused by a gap. This gap was between where they thought things were at right now, and where they thought things should be.

You probably want me to explain this a little further so let me give you some examples.

Some years ago my girlfriend pointed out the lifestyle we had, and commented that it was something that many people desire. I have a very pleasant home in the UK, opposite an attractive park. If I walk out into the park I can go through woodlands into the Peak District,. Now, while I love travelling all over the world, I still think that areas in the Peak District are amongst the most beautiful places on this planet.

What makes it even better is that because of the work I do, I have freedom to explore this beautiful place. Let’s say one day the sun is shining (this seems very rare in the UK right now) then assuming I have no clients for the next hour or two I can walk out of my door ,with my wonderful dog, go through the park and have a relaxing and enjoyable walk in nature.

Before I had this realisation of the lifestyle I actually had, I was somewhat dissatisfied and striving to get more, yet I actually had achieved most of what I wanted. So, by adjusting my thinking about how things actually are, I managed to remove a large layer of stress from my life.

Let me now give you an example of stress caused by thinking that things should be different.

Some years ago I was running a business which I truly felt should be further forward, more profitable and easier to run. I just kept seeing the stories about individuals who’d achieved tremendous success very quickly. I now know that, of course, these are rare individuals!

I have a good friend whom I trust and who has expertise in this area. When he looked at what was happening he pointed out that my business was actually very good – and much further ahead than most would be. So I was constructing a false idea of what things should be like, rather than recognizing that they were actually okay.

Perhaps if you have a similar trait and it’s causing you stress, you may benefit from looking at these two areas i.e. where you think things are at, and where you think they should be.

If you feel that things should be different, the questions you need to ask yourself are:
- “What is the reality of my situation?” and
- “Do I know for certain that they should be different or am I just assuming that they should be?”

Go out and gather some information, pay attention to your actual situation and re-assess.

Alternatively you may not be aware of where, in reality, you’ve got to. Take the time to pay attention to what you actually have, and ask yourself if this is at least partly what you want.

Wherever we are right now in life is where our core passions and values have lead us, and while you may want to change some of these, that’s a different issue.

Today, years after the realisation of the stress of the Gap, I now use mindfulness with many of my clients, that is, paying attention to both the here and now and the thoughts that just drift through our minds. This alone can be a powerful way of putting people back in touch with themselves, their passions and purposes and seeing what they’ve already achieved in life.

[tags]Stress Relief, relaxation cd, causes of stress, stress relief, lifestyle, running a business, success, relaxation, life, UK, freedom, course [/tags]

As a personal coach I’m often asked by my clients how they can build their confidence. This request used to bother me. Partly this was because although it was clear to me what people wanted - at the same time the concept is so intangible. It was only after years of helping and supporting people that I realised what this request was really about.

Today there are numerous powerful techniques to help people build confidence. Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) has produced a huge variety of tools, most of which are about helping people to feel unstoppable, energised and invincible.

There are times when these feelings are certainly the right ones to have. There are other times when this is not the right sort of confidence you need. Let’s say a loved one needs emergency brain surgery. When you meet the surgeon they’re bouncing off the walls with energy and come across as 100% confident, yet you also knew they’re only a junior doctor. How would you feel about trusting the life of a loved one to such a person?

In this article I invite you to explore a little further what being confident means to you.

Let me start by asking some simple questions. Do you feel confident that you can clean your teeth? Do you need to use techniques to feel unstoppable before picking up your toothbrush and toothpaste? May I suggest that you just go to the bathroom and brush your teeth, not giving it a second thought? I think it’s probably fair to say that you’re confident you can clean your teeth.

Now what about switching the light on in your living room, or getting dressed in the morning, or even driving to work? I’d like to suggest that those things that you know you can do are things that you feel confident about - right?

Perhaps you’ve noticed how people talk about confidence. People will commonly say “I’m confident I can do this, or that.” Interestingly though, the majority of times people use the word confidence it’s in connection with a lack of it! People say “I don’t feel confident in job interviews.” “I wish I felt more confident when talking with people of the opposite sex.” “I can’t speak in public because I’m not confident.”

We’re now getting closer to the realisation I had about what confidence is, and what it’s not.

The things you know you can do (such as cleaning your teeth) have no feeling associated with them. These are things you just do. The feeling is only there when you have a lack of confidence.

Lack of confidence is the thing we have to deal with - not confidence. Lack of confidence is no more than a different way of saying we’re afraid, or at least concerned. Just try this for a moment: think of something you feel unconfident about. Do you fear that you might not be able to do that thing? What you feel fearful of is what the outcome might be.

You’re probably aware of the principle that ”When you’ve finally defined what the problem is, you’re most of the way to solving it!” People who are looking for confidence are actually looking for something that probably doesn’t exist. For most people the word confidence just means a lack of fear.

This now makes things much easier to deal with.

These days when I work with people to help them build their confidence, all I need to do is to get them to identify the precise fears or concerns they have. With each individual client those fears or concerns will be different. Sometimes they’re just made up, other times it’s about a lack of knowledge, and often it’s because they don’t have the skills to do things yet.

Let me give you an example. A fairly typical client may want to gain confidence in talking with people of the opposite sex. When they first approach me, what’s probably going on inside their head is some combination of fear of rejection, fear of being laughed at, fear of failure and so on.

Now just imagine the same person if they’d had thousands of conversations with people of the opposite sex so they had the experience of being flexible and relaxed in conversations. How would they feel then? Is it likely they’d have the confidence they’re looking for?

Now apply the same principle to things that you may feel a lack of confidence about. What are your concerns and what are your fears? What skills or abilities, if you had them, would mean that most of these fears and concerns would go away? If you had a great amount of experience in this type of situation how would you feel then?

Perhaps the way for you to get the confidence you’re looking for is to find ways to develop those skills and gain that knowledge.

[tags]build confidence, Confidence, article, problem, personal coach, neuro linguistic programming, supporting people, feelings, living room, nlp, helping people, fear, energy, NLP, feeling, Linguistic, unconfident, connection[tags]