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 Articles How can seeing a Life Coach help you? The way you think about events in your life profoundly influences the way you feel about them; so how would you feel if you knew how to change them? Would you like to change the way you feel about yourself? A Life Coach helps you gain insight into why you feel and act in the ways that you do. For example have you ever felt that sinking feeling in your stomach when your partner is late coming home from work? For some people their mind is flooded with anxious thoughts, 'What if he's been involved in an accident or hit by a drunk driver? Armed with these thoughts images appear in your mind, you see him trapped in the burning wreckage. Or, you see your partner talking and laughing with someone in the street. What's your immediate thought? Is it, 'They're having an affair'? He prefers her to me and is planning to leave me. When they get home you shout and interrogate them and discover in fact she's a relative whom he has not seen for a long time. How do you then feel? I bet you feel ashamed because you are thinking, 'I'm so stupid for jumping to the wrong conclusions.' In order not to be so upset and jump to wrong conclusions you need to change the way you think because when you are emotionally upset your system of thinking becomes closed. Understand that a lot of your emotional difficulties are largely self-defined. For example, do you imagine that next time you have to speak in a meeting in work it is going to be a disaster and everyone will end up talking about you? This leaves you feeling anxious and repeating the scenario in your mind several times a day until its time for the meeting. Then you sit there and say nothing and then pretend that you didn’t want to speak anyway. All imagined events play in our mind when we have distorted thinking. Your emotional reasoning is: 'It must be true because I feel it so strongly, for example, 'I feel like a failure as a mother/partner, so I must be one.' You need to understand that feelings are not facts or reflect objective reality; so a Life Coach will help you to examine the evidence dispassionately in order to arrive at an accurate assessment of a situation. Often we have all-or-nothing thinking, seeing events in extreme terms that allows for no middle ground. As a Life Coach people come to see me for lots of different reasons, but the bottom line is THEY WANT TO BE HAPPY. They no longer want to be in an unhappy relationship, or they desperately want to find their purpose in life, or need to find a personal style and image, or want to unclutter their life etc. I listen to my clients without judgement and accept them unconditionally and give them the tools needed for this change. Have I a Purpose in life? This week I have just been watching London Fashion Week. I always wanted to be a fashion designer but when I was a teenager I did not have the confidence to go to University. So I told my mother that I wanted to leave school. The headmistress of my school said that if I left I would never achieve anything in my life. For a number of years I believe that. But there was always this nagging feeling which would not disappear. I knew that I was here for a purpose. It wasn’t until many years later that I left my comfort zone and trained as a social worker and counsellor working with the bereaved and disadvantaged. The first day at University was pretty scary but I survived! Since then I have trained as an Interior Designer, a Life Coach and have pursued my love of fashion and clothes. How satisfied are you with your life at the moment? We tend to get used to what we have. We keep doing the same old things that we have always done and that have always worked. Our lives may be comfortable, but still there may be a nagging feeling: do I have everything I deserve right now? Do you have that nagging feeling that there is more to life? Do you feel you have everything in your life you deserve? Does your work give you a sense of pleasure, enjoyment, fun or inspiration? Do you believe you are working to make a difference? Life is a series of small decisions. Each one seems inconsequential yet together they add up. Each is important. Whole lives can be changed because of an apparently small decision. According to an American Psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw there are ten such small decisions in your life. Everything we do, every small decision, has some purpose, and taking charge of your life means having your own purpose and setting your own goals, not letting others set them for you. Are you one of those people or have you been fortunate enough to have had a career you enjoyed but now feel a sense of boredom and sameness. If you want to be truly fulfilled you may need to change direction. If you don’t know which direction you should be heading there will be enough people who you know who will tell you what to do. Fiona has been working hard for years, yet she was not enjoying her life. Her conversation to me began with the words "Have I been working hard all these years for something I do not want. This is definitely not the life I dreamt I would have when I left school." Sit in a rocking chair, pretend you are 90 years old and your grandchildren are asking you what you did with your life. Look into their blue eyes etc. Do you wonder if there is such a thing as the perfect career for you and if so do you know how to go about getting it? How your attitude towards yourself impacts on your family: > Are you unable to say no? > Do you constantly feel tired and exhausted? > Are you always shouting at your partner or children? > Do you wonder why some people get the best out of life and you don’t? If you are always tired, rushing around from one commitment to another, snappy, and have a miserable face around your children the message you are giving is that you are unhappy and life is a drag and they are one of the reasons for this. You may verbally be saying to your kids that "I want you to succeed in life" (and success means different things to people) but if you are always shouting then your children will copy what they see you doing, whatever you say to them. With the right attitude and belief in yourself you can overcome difficulties in all areas of your life, beat stress and boost your confidence. This will in turn help you to improve relationships with your partner, children, family and colleagues and enable you to live a happy and contented life full of zest, which in turn will help your kids do the same. Neuro scientists have identified that each day we have a staggering 70,000 thoughts, each of them determining the actions and the habits we have developed and each of these thoughts drive us to live and behave in a certain way. To overcome negative thoughts: > Write 10 reasons to be grateful every day > Pray > Do creative hobbies > List 5 things that would make your ideal life > Think about what excites you & how you want to spend your time Take responsibility for your happiness and to take steps to create the life you want which in turn will reduce your stress, help you gain confidence and most importantly help your children to meet the real you. This will in turn help them to gain confidence. Why do I feel so stressed? Everyone has a set of beliefs that tells them how to behave and what they should do in order to be loved and accepted. These beliefs are at work in your thoughts without you knowing. They are reflected in your language when you use words like ALWAYS, NEVER, EVERYONE, SHOULD. If you find you are using these words, STOP. Where do these beliefs come from? I think of life as rather like a play. You are born into a family where your mum, dad, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles all have their own beliefs about how you should be or behave. This is like a SCRIPT in a play. It’s how they want you to be. It’s in what they say and how they say it, their voice, their face, their body language – approving or disapproving – smiling or frowning at what you do and what you are. Babies ad lib, until they learn to read the script. So do you find yourself saying? > People look to me to be strong so I SHOULD never be weak or ask for help. > Laziness is bad so I SHOULD never relax. How many times have you come home from work and think "I must not sit down for half an hour before the kids come home" Why not? Who says you shouldn’t? > I am ugly or I am stupid so I will never meet anyone who will love me. Who says you are ugly or stupid? Who says that size 10 for a woman is the perfect size. If you listen to the media you will believe this. Marilyn Monroe was an icon and she was no size 10. These negative beliefs, the scripts that go against what you really feel and are, will manifest themselves in your behaviour as stress, fatigue, anger and depression. That may seem depressing but the GOOD NEWS is that this script is not set in stone – it can be changed. Find the source of the scripts and you can change them. You can become who you really are. You just need someone to help you find where it started and how to change it. My belief was that I was not intelligent. “You will never amount to anything” said my headmistress when I left school without taking my ‘O’ levels. This meant that for years I thought I was not intelligent. I took jobs that I was bored and not happy in. It wasn’t until I began challenging this belief and I studied for my degree and various courses in counselling and life coaching that I changed my belief having found evidence to the contrary. Why not contact us by clicking here. 
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