What do you think of yourself?

May 6th, 2008 | 0 Comments | Personal Growth | Tags: , , , , , |

As a life coach, one of the things I present to people are beliefs. This word is related to religion for most people, but in life coaching, it simply means “what you consider to be true”. For example, you may have a belief that anybody taking their clothes off during a soccer game must be nuts. They might dispute this belief, but you still think it’s true.

The thing with beliefs is that we make decisions based on them. So you might expect people to confirm their beliefs and validate them before using them to decide what to do, especially in matters of importance. Well, as scary as this may seem, they don’t. Oh, and neither do you.

You see, our beliefs are very dear to us, so we protect them. They are dear to us because they make our world more predictable and understandable and thus safer. So when we were born, we hurried up and absorbed beliefs from our environment - from our parents, from TV, from school and pretty much everywhere else - and, in many cases, we absorbed beliefs that have nothing to do with reality and everything to do with what our parents thought, but that was fine for us, because we didn’t know any better.

So far, what I’ve described is natural and happens to everyone. What happens next is that our beliefs determine our behavior and therefore the results we get. If we were told as kids “You’re no good at sports”, we stay away from sports, and then we put on weight. If we were told as kids “Wow, you do math so easily”, we do more math, so we become even better at it, until we become accountants.

Yet, as we grow up, most of us get a feeling that life could be better. There’s got to be more to life than working 8-6 (anyone still remember 9-5?), facing a computer all day long and trying to have a life during weekends and annual leave. So we read books on change and we go to seminars and we listen to audio programs and some of us even see a life coach (they’re the ones that get the best results, by the way), and we do our best to change.

So here’s a great exercise for you, which you can do as often as you like, whenever you have some time to yourself.

  1. Find a quiet spot (sorry, all my “do it yourself” tips start with this bit)
  2. Take a few deep, long breathes
  3. On a piece of paper, write down the question “What kind of a person am I?”
  4. As fast as you can, without picking up the pen from the paper, write down as many answers as you can. If you get stuck, scribble. Keep at it for 3 minutes
  5. Each of the statements you have written is a belief. For each belief
    1. Ask yourself “Is this helping me to think of myself like this?”
    2. If your answer is “no”, find exceptions to the statement, i.e. examples of when it is not true
    3. Ask yourself “What would be a better (more empowering) way to think of myself?”
    4. Write an alternative statement and feel its power

If you need some help sorting out your beliefs, seek the help of a life coach. This is what life coaches do for a living and you’ll be happy you did.

 

Personal Growth vs. Financial Success

April 30th, 2008 | 0 Comments | Living & Life Style, Personal Growth | Tags: , , , , , , , |

Let’s face it, most of the people we know measure themselves and others by the perception of their “net worth”. They may not know what others are “worth”, but that doesn’t stop them from making wild guesses, based on external appearances, like clothes, cars and house, and decide whether a person is successful in life or not.

This influence gets many people stuck in life. They look at their own bank account and think “Oh, my God, I am such a failure”, while there is much in their life they could see as success. There are others who sacrifice many important things in their life, but their bank balance is large, so they think “Gee, I am so successful, why am I so miserable?”.

Now, I don’t contest the importance of financial comfort, because our world is a lot nicer when we have money. What I am saying is that the link between the amount of money you have and how successful in life is not 1:1. In fact, anyone can see themselves as a success in some areas, sometimes even more so than compared with “the rich people”.

Here are some “personal growth” things that will get you feeling successful in no time:

  1. No matter what decision you ever make, it always has a down side. The decision only has to do with what is more important to you. This means that you are always more successful than you could be, had you chosen differently, according to your own priorities. Whenever you make a decision, you choose the most successful option by your definition.
    So when you evaluate your life, remember that by your standards, you are as successful as you could be.
  2. The flip side, of course, is to look at what other people sacrifice in order to gain their financial success - time with their kids, broken marriage, lost friends, stress-induced medical conditions and lots more. When you look at their decisions, their down side may be your up side, and your time with your kids, your loving relationships and your health are your successes, even if you’ve had to give up money to have them.
    When you die, seeing the face of people who love you is a lot more comforting than knowing you have money in the bank…
  3. Brian Tracey, a truly remarkable man, says that success is a matter of focus and that one should focus on learning and growth, instead of achievements. It may take some time to hit a goal, so keeping motivated can be a challenge on days when nothing is finished. Brian Tracey suggests to focus on improvements instead. Every day, you can be successful at being a bit better than yesterday at something.
    Measure you skill levels at various things and set daily goals to improve them. The compounding of these improvements will take you a long way, but more importantly, you will feel like a success all the time.

[Just to be absolutely clear, many rich people also have friends and lead a good life outside of work. I sincerely hope no rich people have been hurt in the process of creating this post :D ]

What I’m saying is that the starting point of each one of us is different, so comparing people based on any single factor is ridiculous, let alone a perceived factor. Broaden your definition of success and make it your own. Decide what’s important for YOU, break it down to little bits, conquer them daily and feel successful all the time.

That should put a big smile on your face!