Who’s your greatest critic?

I asked the question, “who’s your greatest critic?” And the answers I got were numerous. Most said either their mother or father, and a couple said that they were in fact their own worst critic.

It is common to feel that there is someone in our life who is more critical of us than others, but it’s not so much the criticism that counts, as how we deal with it.

How easy is it to shake off criticism if it is a regular occurrence? After all, limiting beliefs can be easily created if we believe our critics, and if we are own worst critic it can feel impossible to break the self critical habits of a lifetime.

But ask yourself, when taking on the criticism of others what do you achieve? If you refused to take on such criticism how would that make you feel? It’s ok to not take on criticism from others; we may not be able to stop it, but we can take control of how we react to it.

And if you are a self critic? What is it that makes you feel that way? Imagine letting that self criticism, and the resulting beliefs go, how does that feel? If it feels good, then stop imagining and let them go.

Think about your world without the negative beliefs that criticism brings, and take the step today to turn criticism and negative beliefs into positive self belief.

Change is the journey of a lifetime

If you were going to plan the trip of a lifetime, where would you go?  Imagine planning it, looking at your destination, how would you get there? Car? Bus? Train? Plane? Boat?  What might be the things that might prevent you from going on your trip, are there any?

 

Often life changes are referred to as a “journey,” and this isn’t surprising when we consider that many changes we make in our lives do actually involve travel.

 

When we move house we hire a van to take us there, getting married involves travelling in a fancy car to your venue of choice, even bringing a baby home from hospital means getting into your car and making the journey home. And sometimes there are pitfalls along the way, things that make those changes and those journeys more interesting, or challenging, but not impossible.

 

Some of the biggest changes in my life started with actual journeys. Emigrating to another country, going to a new (boarding) school where I didn’t speak the language, returning back to this country several years later.  They were all huge changes in my life, changes which helped define me as a person, and they all started out with an actual journey.  And I have memories of those actual journeys, coming into land on the flight to our new country of residence, in a thunder storm; we hit an air pocket and dropped several thousand feet through the sky, with passengers screaming all around me.  No-one was hurt; it was just one of those events that sticks in my mind.  Although I never really liked flying after that.  Then shortly afterwards we landed in the country that became my home and formed a large part of my identity.

 

Driving to school I remember wondering what it would be like. How hard would it be going to a school where I didn’t speak the language.  Would I make friends?  How would I make friends if I didn’t speak the language?  And that was the beginning of a challenging time, but within six months I was bilingual, made a new set of friends and so began a new set of experiences which went on to shape the person I grew into.  And it all began with a journey.

 

So when you think about the changes you would like to make in your life, how could that journey start for you?  And where would you like it to end?  Of course a journey here is metaphorical, but it still indicates the movement from one part of your life into another, a transition period which will take you from the person you are now, through the changes you want to make in order to achieve the end goal you set for yourself.

 

Think about how you will plan your journey.  Think about where you want to go, and how you are going to get there.

 

The changes you want to make are your trip of a lifetime.

 

Start your journey today.

Once upon a time, positively ever after.

Once upon a time, in a life not so far away, the past began.  It was an interesting time, there were good bits, bad bits, some bits which you’d rather forget and some which you will remember for ever.  And all the bits could be put together to make up your story.

 

Then one day, you realised that you wanted to move forward, and in order to do that, you had to leave some of the bits of the past behind.  It was difficult, because every one of them was important to you, some of them even helped to form a part of who you are.  But in time you closed the pages of the story that was the past, and moved forward into the future, where you lived positively ever after.

 

Sounds like something out of a story book doesn’t it?  And if I were to suggest to anyone that the life they have lived previous to now is a story I have little doubt that some might take offense.

 

But in truth we can all look at our lives as a story, with all the different parts making up the different elements of who we are.  And when it’s in the past, we can’t change it, so why not look at it as a story in order to be able to put it behind us and look at the future?

 

“Once upon a time, in a life not so far away, the past began.”  And it is that reference to it being the past that makes it all a part of the story, and the life not so far away is your life.  It’s no less relevant now that you think of it as a story, it merely reflects that it’s a part of who you were then, as opposed to who you are now or who you would like to become in the future.

 

“It was an interesting time, there were good bits, bad bits, some bits you’d rather forget and some which you will remember for ever.”  And again it refers to all the parts of your life which make up the story are relevant, and just because you leave them behind doesn’t mean you can’t remember them and take from them.

 

The past has happened, even the bits of the past you take with you into the future have happened.  You can’t change them, you can only take from them, learn from them, and use them to make the changes you need to move forward.

 

The story is told.  Now it’s a question of what you do with it.

 

Do you look back at once upon a time? Or do you close the pages and move forward into positively ever after?

fear worse than reality?

Remember when you were a child, and the things you wouldn’t do because the thought of them was too scary?  Not wanting to go to bed at night because of the monsters under your bed, or go on that fairground ride, or into the haunted house, or being scared on your first day at school in case the other children didn’t like you?

 

Yet as that child you had no choice but to face your fear.  You still had to go to bed, You still had to start school.  And when you woke the next morning you realised you hadn’t been eaten by monsters, and invariably you came home on your first day and announced to your parents that you’d made friends.  The funfair rides were less of a necessary fear you had to face, however not going on that roundabout would mean losing face in front of your friends, and the fear of that was greater than the fear of the roundabout itself.  And once you were on the roundabout suddenly the fear seemed a bit pointless really, because nothing scary happened.

 

As adults we are faced with fears all the time, sometimes even subconsciously.  And it is those fears which often hold us back from looking forward and facing the changes we want or need to make in our own lives.

 

And just like when we were children, the reality of what might happen is often far different from the fear of what we think might happen.

 

The question we should ask ourselves is “what’s the worst that can happen?”  And then, “and if the worst happened, what then?”  In truth it’s a question and answer we rarely think about, because we are so blinded by the fear of change that we have often lost sight of what it is we’re actually afraid of.

 

So ask yourself, what is it you’re afraid of that’s stopping you make the changes in your life?  How realistic are those fears, and ultimately, what’s the worst that can happen?  And if you put your fears aside, what’s the desired outcome, and how does that measure against the fear which you have been using to hold you back?

 

The difference between change and fear is that change is a reality. If you want it, you can make it happen.  Fear is a perceived reality, a subconscious thought process which prevents you from moving forward into that change reality.  But if you face it, accept it, you can move past it into the reality of the changes you want to make.

 

 

Can you see the other side of the river?

So there are some major changes you want or need to make in your life.  You know what they are, but they seem so far out of reach that you just don’t know how you will ever be able to achieve them.

 

In truth change is usually an on-going process, especially major change.  But often even though the end goal is not yet in sight and you struggle to think how or even if you will ever get there, there are steps you can take to make the bigger changes seem less of a daunting prospect, through the smaller goals you can set to get you to the end result.

 

Imagine it’s like a wide river.  You stand on the bank and try to see the other side.  You know it’s there, you can even imagine what the other side looks like – a beautiful, positive place, yet you can’t see it, and you can’t think of a way to get there.  And then, as you walk along the river you suddenly come to some stepping stones.  Gradually, cautiously at first, you step on to the first stone.  You’re unsure at first, because although you know where you want to go, you’re still not sure whether you can actually get there.  And once you start out on the stepping stones you can’t go back, you don’t want to go back.  But you step on to the first stone and then the next one, until you are gradually making your way across the river.  And the further across you go, the more confident you are that you will make it safely to the other side.

 

Then you realise that your view from the stepping stones has changed.  You’re no longer just looking at the stones ahead of you, now you can see some greenery, trees? Bushes? Grass? You’re not quite sure, but you know you can see something.  And as you get closer you realise that it’s the other side of the river.  And now you’re more confident, your goal is in sight, and you know that all you have to do is make it across the stones to get there.  And then eventually you step off the last stone, and you’re on the other side of the river.

 

Those stepping stones are the small changes, the small goals you reach in order to get to the other side of the river, which is the big change, the ultimate goal you wanted to achieve.  Every stone is a goal.  And every time you reach one of the small goals, you are a stone closer to the ultimate aim, the other side of the river.

 

Are you confident enough to step on to the first stone?

Don’t ask what if, ask what now?

What if you could do anything you wanted to?  What if you could flick a switch and all those things you have always dreamed about could suddenly become a reality?  And on the flip side, what if you’d never done that thing you didn’t mean to do, you know, which caused that other thing to happen that you didn’t want?

 

So often we ask ourselves “what if?” when actually what we should be asking is “what now?”  Think about it for a minute.

 

What if you hadn’t done that thing in the past, that thing you now wish you hadn’t?  Well, you could ask yourself that question, but in truth the answer wouldn’t provide the solution.  Because whatever it was, you’ve already done it.  It’s in the past, you can never take it back or undo it.  So even if you knew what the outcome would have been, asking “what if?” at this point in time has no impact.

 

So instead you need to ask “what now?”  The past has happened.  You can’t undo it, so now you need to look forward.  So what now?  What can you do now to ensure that things don’t happen again in the same way they did before? How can you move forward and achieve success? What is it you have to do?  What now?

 

What if you could do anything you wanted to?  Well quite.  What if you could?  Think about what it is you want to do, and then imagine how it would be if you could do it.

 

So what do you have to do now in order to be where you were just now, when you were imagining what if?  You know what it is you want to achieve, so what do you have to do to achieve it?  What now?

 

Once you have the answer to “what now?” you have the first steps towards moving forward, and achieving the results you want.

 

So don’t ask yourself “what if?” because while it may give you some insight, it won’t help you achieve.

 

Ask yourself “what now?”

Be responsible for the person you are

So often when we feel we are unable to move forward it is because of the reactions and behaviours of other people.  Someone tells you you can’t do something, or reacts to something in a certain way and you allow that to hold you back.  My reaction when clients tell me that is often to say “who’s that about?” because invariably other people’s behaviours and reactions have to do with them and not with the people they are reacting to, and if you can see that other people’s reactions are about them it is easier to overlook them in order to move forward yourself.

 

However, sometimes the thing that stops us moving forward is our own behaviours and reactions.  Maybe we have internal beliefs which hold us back from doing the things we know we can.  Or maybe we have past experiences which have had an impact on the things we want to do/achieve.  Or maybe we exhibit negative behaviours or trates which impact on the way we move forward in our own lives and ultimately impact on others.

 

When asking someone “who’s that about?” the inference is that the comments thoughts and feelings of other people are often just that, *their* comments and thoughts and feelings, and ultimately their behaviours, which have a negative impact on the individual.  So, if it is our own behaviours which end up having a negative impact on our own lives, and perhaps ultimately even on the lives of others, it becomes time to take an inward look at ourselves and work out how to address those negatives in us in order to move forward.

 

We are all responsible for our own reactions.  Even if someone else has had a negative impact on us in the past, we are still ultimately responsible for how we choose to react.

 

It is very easy to pass the blame for our own negative behaviours and reactions on to other people.  After all, the impact of others is powerful and should never be underestimated.  However, we as individuals still have the ultimate power to choose how we ourselves react and behave, in spite of other’ influences.  And if the behaviours we ourselves exhibit are negative, we have the responsibility to recognise that and to seek to address it.

 

Ultimately, you are responsible for the person you are.