What’s Your Story?
We all have a story. I don’t mean that novel lurking within; I mean we all have a back story to our life which governs how we live our life.
Children
Much of our storyline will have been set in childhood. When I was working professionally with children life story work was a significant element in helping them come to terms with what had happened to them. Children are very good at creating a story to fill in the gaps in their knowledge. Unfortunately, children who have had sorrow in their lives tend to make up a story where they are at fault in some way, in some way responsible for what had happened to them.
Adults and Stories
And what have I learned from experience and study is that we never really lose our childhood stories about ourselves. And those stories continue to have an impact on us and our experience of life. Which is fine if you were fortunate enough to have a good back story; if you had significant adults in your life who praised you and helped you develop a good sense of self. If you didn’t have that experience it’s possible that you are still playing a character from your story that is stifling your potential.
I Want to Tell You a Story…
In a safe way, I lightly touch on this topic in my RenewYou course. I ask the women to think about labels they and others hold of them. And then I ask them to think about the labels they’d like to change. And then we think about making that change!
Your story isn’t finished. You are the author and it’s within you to write a new paragraph, bring in new characters, try a new location, focus on a new direction! So now you’re in charge of your story, what will you ‘write’?
Direct Your Energy Where You Want Results!
Direct Your Energy Where You Want to See Results!
It doesn’t matter how many self help books you read (even mine!), how much you practise circular breathing, how much you think positively, how often you chant, focus on words on the ceiling (good grief), there is no substitute for actually doing something to get where you want to be. That means real, down to earth, honest to goodness hard work, not simply thinking about what you want to happen if only everything would come together in your favour!
Phew, that was good to say! There really is no substitute for actually getting on with it. I was asked by a journalist recently if I thought the current self help culture meant people thought they ‘deserved’ to succeed, that that there was a solution for everything and everyone should be happy all the time. Good question.
I do come across this attitude from time to time, and there is masses of information out there giving you all sorts of advice about how you can be wonderful, have a great life etc. My site is full of it too. I have a passion for helping women live their lives to the max and getting out of it what they want. You will find masses of information here to help you get going, to inspire and push you on.
But anyone who has ever worked with me knows that one of my continual questions is:
‘What are you actually going to do and when are you going to do it?‘
Add Ons
All the other things I have mentioned help, of course they do, but they are additional to actually doing something. If you want to write a novel you can make yourself an inspiring room to write in. You can read books by other writers. You can sign up to writing courses. You can buy a beautiful notebook, lovely pens. All these things may motivate you to get going, build your confidence, and increase your pleasure in the task. BUT at some point the preparation has to stop and the real writing has to begin or the book will always remain an idea.
Likewise, if you want to change your job, you could buy my book, do all the exercises, listen to the visualisation. You will have prepared yourself well and got a good idea of the steps you need to take to make those changes. Hopefully I will even have inspired you to be brave and bold. BUT you still have to go out there, buy newspapers, look for jobs, and apply for them. You still have to take the risks yourself, decide when the time is right to start your own business, go into partnership with a friend, or ask the bank for a business loan.
Focus
All of the preparation is good; I wouldn’t recommend that you jump will nilly into something (well, maybe sometimes a bit of risk taking can be energising, when we just follow our instincts! It can work.)
The problem comes when all our energies go into preparing, (or complaining) and not into doing. If you have a long held dream beginning ‘one day I will…’ do you know when that ‘one day’ is? Certainly do all the preparing, and if you are in a job you loathe preparing now for a new one when times are better may help you through the interim period. But do give yourself a date when you will move from preparing into doing. Review it regularly. After all, you don’t want to be looking behind you muttering wistfully, ‘If only…’.
Self Help is Indulgent ClapTrap?
If a sign of a good radio programme is that it provokes you to action, then BBC’s Radio 4 Women’s Hour is very good as it has provoked this post!
The programme had a short debate recently between a life coach and an author. The discussion was around whether self help actually makes anyone any happier, given that the majority of self help book buyers are female, and yet the numbers of women with mental health problems are going up.
I found myself (to my own irritation) sat between the two. The coach made many valid points about the value of coaching in helping people to stop seeing themselves as victims, but weakened her authority (in my opinion) by over-advertising her own courses.
The nub of the argument from the author was that coaching is too self centred, too individualised and encourages people to think they can control anything, regardless of external factors. Her view was that this stopped them doing something to challenge the status quo, stopped them becoming active agents for change for the greater good (I am paraphrasing here). She likened it to reality TV which, she believed, encouraged everyone to think they could become a ‘star’ with very little work.
I am sympathetic to the idea that working on issues of one’s own can make us less aware of what is happening in the wilder world leaving us stuck into a ‘I deserve better‘ mentality. Very occasionally, when working in larger organisations, I see this attitude from staff. They are angry about what is happening but don’t always make the connections between what is happening in the world today and what is happening to them. Equally, I KNOW working one to one can be highly effective in helping make positive changes, and also that many of the people I have worked with have made very positive contributions to society as a whole. Coaching done well is not merely self interested new age clap trap!
The author also criticised self help for being a recent phenomenon and symptomatic of our ‘me-me’ times. Well, there she is definitely wrong! You only need to look back at some of the world’s philosophies to see that the idea of choosing how you view what is happening in the world (making the best of it) has a long and venerable pedigree. My personal self help model comes from a Stoic philosopher, Epictetus. He said:
“We are not touched so much by life events themselves but by the view we choose to take of them”
That surely is the founding statement behind all self help philosophies and he made that in AD55!
What do you think? Is self help, or coaching, or personal development indulgent nonsense which helps no one, or does it have a credible role to play in helping people change and achieve to their full potential? I think you can guess my view!
If you’d like to discuss further with me how our working one to one might enrich your life, do give me a call! My confidential number is 01761 438749 or you can use the contact page and I’ll call at a time convenient to you!
Are You Good Enough? 15 ways to build a confident mindset.
Are You Good Enough? is a compact paperback authored by Bill Mc Farlan & Dr Alex Yellowlees. It sells at 8.99 and is published by Capstone.
The book has been written to act as confidence booster and by and large I think it achieves its purpose. It’s full of examples and stories based around an ‘ordinary’ couple who go on to explore their behaviour and values.
Here is an extract to give you an idea of style:
“In every moment, our own mind is either working for or against us. The choice is ours.
Lynn thinks back to her childhood, and how she struggled even then to make sense of her family, her environment, her ‘world’.
She now realises that, in so many ways, it didn’t add up at all.
Her mother praised her, irrespective of what she did – an dher father gave her no feedback whatsoever, neither good nor bad.
She recognises how impossible it was, as a child growing up in that specific setting, to construct a clear picture of a rational world.
Suddenly it dawns on her:
It’s impossible to build a sure sense of healthy self worth on sifting sands of inconsistent and conflicting parental messages.
No wonder Lynn has doubted herself so much and found compliments from Steve and her colleagues hard to believe. She still thinks, sometimes, that they are ‘just being nice’ to her by not telling her the truth.”
The book pulls no punches and digs deep but in an informal and very accessible style. Each chapter contains an analysis of the situation without being preachy or patronising. If you’re feeling a lack of confidence in your life I think this would be a good place to start! You can buy it at £6.74 via Amazon or get a copy from your local library.
Feel The Fear and Do It Anway!
‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’ by Susan Jeffers is an absolute classic in the self help genre. It was first published in 1987 and has been a best seller ever since.
Susan acknowledges the fears that we all have, fear of failure, fear of success, and so on. She takes you through what she describes as three levels of fear. Not with the idea of eliminating the risks of life, rather facing your fear full on and training your thoughts to work for you rather than against.
Here’s an extract from the book:
“Taking responsibility means not blaming yourself.
I know that sounds contradictory, but it is not. Anything that takes away your power or your pleasure makes you a victim. Don’t make yourself a victim of yourself!
For some, this more difficult than not blaming others. Once you’ve become aware that you have created so much of your unhappiness, you have a tendency to punish yourself and put yourself down. “There I am messing up my life again. I’m hopeless. When will I ever learn?”
This, again, is not taking responsibility for your experience of life. It is important to understand that you have always done the best you possibly could, given the person you were at any particular time. Now that you are learning a new way of thinking, you can begin to perceive things differently and possibly change many of your actions. There is absolutely no need to be upset with your past, present or future behavior. It is all simply part of the learning process-the process of moving yourself from pain to power.”
The book contains stories and lots of exercises you can try yourself. There is a particular exercise illustrating the power of our thoughts over our body which I use on my Renewyou course which never fails to amaze people, and is really powerful. It is a classic book and each time I pick it up I am reminded of something helpful, for me and for my coaching clients.
If you haven’t got a copy I recommend it to you. And if you have one tucked away somewhere, dig it out and read it again. It’s available from all major booksellers and libraries, or on line from Amazon
