Who Do You Think You're Talking To!

A great quote by Carla Gordan goes… “lf someone talked to you the way you talk to yourself , you would have kicked them out of your life a long time ago”.

Its one of my favourite quotes and one that I think everyone should be aware of.

It’s amazing the disrespect we can show ourselves as a matter of habit, if we don’t keep a check on our self talk.

Depending on how we were spoken to by those who influenced us the most as we were growing up, we can carry bad habits throughout our adult lives.

How do you respond when you get something wrong?

Do you admonish yourself automatically, or do you accept your mistake with the grace it deserves and move on?

Are you aware of how you speak to yourself, is it negative or positive?

These are important questions to be aware of in our daily lives. The way you treat yourself, will have an impact on the way other people treat you. How can you expect others to respect you if you don’t respect yourself? Its simple… you can’t!

Changing your language

Imagine if you woke up everyday and sitting at the end of your bed was a person who welcomed you each morning with a positive statement, who made you feel loved, cherished and wanted, wouldn’t that be wonderful! Well that is what you are going to create for yourself everyday, your own champion, your own cheerleader who makes you feel good about yourself and everything you do.

Congratulate yourself on every achievement, it can be anything you do, but from now on you are going to banish every negative thought. In everything you do, give yourself encouraging praise, Sometimes you might find a negative thought creeping in, that’s ok but just replace it with something positive.

Do any of the following sound familiar?

1. I’m fat
2. I hate my job
3. I’m stupid
4. Everyone hates me
5. I’m so unhappy

You are going to STOP speaking negatively about yourself because that’s just plain rude!

We are going to change those negative statements and replace them with postive ones. We are going to change your self talk.

1. I’m learning to love the way I look
2. I’m going to look at ways of improving my career prospects
3. I love learning new things and building my knowledge
4. I am a loved and valued person
5. I deserve to be happy, and I am going to create my own happiness

These statements sound very different don’t they, but this is all you deserve. You don’t deserve to have anyone speaking to you disrespectfully or bringing you down, whether it is yourself or someone else.

From now on when you are about to say something to yourself, remember, STOP

Think about how it sounds, is it negative or postive and then if needed, adapt the message you are giving yourself.

“I cannot always control what goes on outside. But I can always control what goes on inside”. Wayne Dyer

Copyright Elizabeth Bacchus

Are You Making 2009 A Great Year? You Still Can!

I love the autumn; it is my absolute favourite time. For me it represents the beginning of the closing months of the year; a time to reflect on what has been achieved over the previous year, and settling in for the winter.

January resolutions are all very well and good, I though have always thought they represent unnecessary pressure at the beginning of a fresh new year. Why be so demanding of yourself?

The months of October, November and December are a great time for reviewing how your year has gone so far. Did you fit in everything you wanted to do? Did you achieve everything you had planned to, if not why not?

It’s not a time to admonish yourself but more of a time to create clear pathways for the new road ahead, and get excited with all the possibilities in front of you.

The biggest mistake a lot of people can make with goal planning is having too many goals and not creating the resources needed to achieve them. This in turn generates a sense of failure when the tasks become impossible, and results in de-motivating you.

By reviewing your past year and looking at what you wanted to achieve, did accomplish and were not able to make happen; you can create a clear vision of the areas that had obstacles in them.

I help my clients create an effective way to review their achievements of the past year:-

• List the goals they had set for themselves
• Highlight the ones that were achieved
• Note the steps they took that helped them achieve these goals and what resources they used
• Review the goals that were not achieved
• Detail why they feel they didn’t reach these goals
• What resources did they need that were not available to them, (time, money, motivation etc)
• What steps would they need to take to create those resources?
• Do they want to aim for those goals again and if so, what changes are they going to put in place?

By reviewing your goals, you give yourself a helicopter view of your progress. You are breaking down the steps you made and the obstacles that you met with. This enables you to see clearly what internal and external resources need to be in place to make achieving your goals easier.

Top tips for reviewing your goals

• Don’t be too hard on yourself
• Be realistic on why your goals were not met
• Congratulate yourself on ALL your achievements however large or small
• Stay positive, focussed and motivated – remember, you have the power to make anything happen!

Copyright Elizabeth Bacchus