Archive for the ‘Self Awareness’ Category
Habits Change; So Can You
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012You Need to Know Your Habits if You’re Going to Break Them
Last week I had a call from a friend I hadn’t seen for almost a year. She lives nearby but our lives had been so busy that we hadn’t had chance to meet up. It was so lovely to hear from her that I invited her over at the weekend.
“I can’t do Sunday because that’s when I do the big supermarket shop and clean the house,” she said. “If I don’t get those jobs done on a Sunday the week ahead is chaos!”
Many of us have similar routines and we stick to them because it’s what we do, it’s like a script that an actor has to learn. Once we learn it, that’s what we do and continue to avoid the discomfort associated with changing it. In fact, you’re probably wondering why there’s any need to change your habits at all when they appear to make life easier.
Rethinking mundane routines may seem trivial but the reality is that the more we hold onto old ideas and old ways of doing things the more they creep in and the harder it becomes to break down the barriers and creating new solutions in all areas of our lives.
The New Year often starts off with many of us thinking about breaking habits and doing things differently but although we might think we know what needs to change in our lives to makes us happier or healthier there will be activities we do regularly that we’re not necessarily aware of.
Habits aren’t just vices we’d like to break like a desire to smoke or eat chocolate, they are patterns in our lives that have become so familiar and comfortable that we’re afraid to break them.
To become aware of your habits start by examining your daily and weekly routine. Do you go to the supermarket every Saturday morning and do you always go to the same one? Do you always visit the same restaurant? Do you do certain tasks on the same day each week? It’s only when you really take an honest look at your daily routine that you see how many patterns emerge that are hindering you, your time and your energy.
A simple change of habit such as shopping at a different supermarket can make you really become consciously aware of what you buy and will expose you to different types of products that break the monotony of the same old stuff.
For more ideas on how to break your own self-imposed rules to inspire creativity and make change positive, download a free chapter of my book Walk on the Grass or try my six step online personal change programme.
Look Younger With a New Year Makeover
Wednesday, January 11th, 2012
The popularity of TV shows like ’10 Years Younger’ and ‘How To Look Good Naked’ is evidence of the fact that many people would love somebody to come in and change them for the better.
Imagine a stylist weighing up the contents of your wardrobe or the décor in your living room and showing you exactly what to do to make them more vibrant, colourful, fashionable and take years off. Suddenly you feel more confident and energetic.
In the absence of a TV expert or a fairy godmother with a magic wand, why not take stop procrastinating, take control and give yourself a makeover instead, to drop those years away? It’s not as hard as you might think and working through a few exercises to help you understand what makes you feel good will empower you to change your own life without relying on other people to do it for you.
In my book Walk on the Grass I take readers through a series of steps to help them improve self awareness. Similar exercises form part of my online personal change programme.
To find out what inspires you try collecting images that appeal to your senses and identifying colours that attract you. Choose to wear only the clothes in your wardrobe that make you feel good and remove anything that makes you feel drab and dreary – when you dress in what makes you feel good, you’re ready for any opportunity that turns up and it can take years off how you feel about yourself.
And for once, don’t worry about anyone else’s opinion.
Because the only opinion that matters on what you look like is yours. So look good and feel good.
My Teenage Mind
Tuesday, July 26th, 2011My Teenage Mind
| Walk On The Grass – Coaching Programme information | ||
| Aim
This ‘Walk On The Grass’ programme is aimed at building the emotional intelligence of young people. Research shows that in the world of work, over 80% of top business performers are known to be high in self-awareness, which means they are more likely to pursue opportunities, be more productive and prevent emotions from holding them back in life. Developing your emotional intelligence can have a direct impact to improve learning, gain an insight into relationships at home, school or work, create more focus, reduce lethargy and get connected with your future. |
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| Objectives
Step by step this programme will enable you to:
You will leave with the programme with a new outlook on life and a full set of useful, practical and easy tools and techniques to tap into your real potential. |
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| Initial Assessment Questionnaire and Report | Initial assessment with a follow up assessment 12 weeks later to measure positive change | |
| Personal meetings with your Coach | 6 x One to One Sessions held fortnightly over 90 days | |
| Access to on-line coaching activities | 6 x on-line coaching sessions with activities to complete and feedback | |
| Email Support | On-going as and when required | |
| Core Content includes: | Weeks 1 to 4 – CREATING SELF-AWARENESS:
Understanding Physical Feelings, Emotional Outbursts, Breaking Habits, Accepting Criticism, Counteracting Negative Thoughts, Managing Stress Weeks 5 to 8 – UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONAL MANAGEMENT: Starting Conversations, Building Confidence, Making Decisions, Adapting To Change, Setting Future Goals Weeks 9 to 12 – DEVELOPING SOCIAL AWARENESS: Speaking so Others Listen, Listening So Others Speak, Communicating With Challenging People, Understanding Empathy |
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| One to one sessions will be tailored to each individual based on the initial assessment and areas for development. Sessions can be held on Skype or face to face in Harrogate, Ripon and Leeds.
Contact info@angelawhitlock.com or 0845 643 6117 for prices and start dates. |
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Download Programme PDF Here
Procrastination and Perfectionism
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011Do you feel that what you accomplish is never quite good enough?
Do you often put off finishing projects, waiting to get them just right?
Do you feel you that 100% on everything you do is not enough for fear that you will be average or even a failure?
I was interested in the definition of perfectionism because so many of us whether teenager, parent or business person, suffer from it, and it is defined as:
- * Fussiness
- * Nit picking
- * Rigorousness
- * Fastidiousness
Many of these self sabotaging thoughts and behaviours are associated with high expectations and not realistic goals. Perfectionism is often a trait of procrastination and can be mistakenly seen as desirable or even necessary for success. Recent studies show that perfectionist attitudes actually interfere with success and mainly because the desire to be perfect can deny you a sense of satisfaction and cause you to achieve far less than people with more realistic goals.
The thoughts that undermine this are:
- * Your expectations of yourself
- * Your expectations of others
- * Others expectations of you
If you recognise that you are a perfectionist, it is likely that you learned early in life that you were mainly valued for your achievements.
- * You may have learned to value yourself only on the basis of other people’s approval.
- * Your self esteem may be based primarily on external recognition.
- * This can leave you vulnerable and sensitive to the opinions and criticism of others.
- * To protect yourself you may decide that being perfect is your only defence.
I recall one client who told me how she would get into school early so she could sit on the ‘clever people’s chairs’ in order for some intelligence to rub off on her. The fears that are often present are:
- * Fear of failure.
- * Fear of making mistakes.
- * Fear of disapproval.
- * All or nothing thinking.
- * Over emphasis on ‘should’, ‘must’ and ‘ought’.
- * Never being good enough.
Although I’m reluctant to blame everything on our childhood, it does show the influence of our early experiences which can be:
- * parents’ expectations
- * rewards and reinforcements
- * punishments for not achieving
- * role modelling behaviour from those around you
Some of the negative thinking can be an assessment of our worth and I often hear clients berating themselves, with the words – ‘I am stupid’
People develop faulty coping strategies to manage it, such as ‘I must achieve the highest ideals or be a complete failure
But we are adults so how do we maintain it in adulthood, well we do it by:
- * Current triggers – e.g. maybe a report you are writing or a presentation you are giving
- * Negative future predictions – ‘I’ll fail and people will think I am stupid
- * Unhelpful behaviours, which can be not doing anything at all or avoidance of tasks, constant checking of what you have done which confirms your negative beliefs
- * Self critical thoughts – ‘I’ve failed again’
- * Depression and low mood
The kind of beliefs that keep perfectionism fuelled are:
- * You can’t succeed without it, yet there is no evidence that perfectionists are more successful, and in fact it is likely to be the reverse! Because success may be achieved despite your compulsive striving.
- * It gets you the best results – but in fact, it gets you procrastination, missed deadlines, low productivity. Even the smallest of tasks become overwhelming, leaving you agonising over non critical details.
- * It enables you to overcome obstacles – but in fact it can cause a lack of concentration on the process of getting the task done, which can lead to depression and anxiety
- It helps you achieve and please others – but relationships become complex when we constantly try and please others. By comparison achievers are willing to make mistakes and risk failure because imperfection is part of being human.
So what can you do if you recognise you have these behaviours?
- * Realize that perfectionism is undesirable and is an illusion that is unattainable.
- * Challenge self critical thoughts and actions that feed perfectionism.
- * Do the analysis and consider what is the cost and benefit of keeping high standards
- * Identify goals – general and specific – to reduce perfectionism
What activities can you do:
- One of the first ways to challenge your thoughts is to use my technique of getting an elastic band on your wrist and each time you are aware of these negative perfectionist thoughts, flick the band and replace the thought with a more positive one e.g. my work isn’t good enough changes to ‘I’ll ask for feedback on my work and learn from it’
- * Another strategy is to carry a small journal book for recording thoughts. A client told me the other day that when she did this, she found the problem left her mind and she stopped worrying about it.
- * There are also exposure strategies such as the ‘Eating The Frog’ strategy.
- * Improve your communications, practice listening and paying attention to both your own body language and the reaction of others to you.
- * Build your confidence and assertiveness, learning to say no, it will give you back the control that perfectionists often feel they lack.
- * Set realistic and reachable goals, use SMART, specific, measureable, achievable, realistic and timely to assess whether the goal is attainable.
- * Experiment with your standards for success. Try for 75% or even 60% and remember you are not packing parachutes, (if you are then keep up the good work 100% is expected).
- * Research now shows that more is achieved if we focus on the process of doing an activity and not just the end result.
- * Evaluate success in terms of what you accomplished and whether you enjoyed the task.
- * Check your emotions. And monitor feelings of anxiety and depression e.g. have I set up impossible expectations for myself in this situation?”
- * Face the fears that may be behind your perfectionism by asking yourself, what am I afraid of? What is the worst thing that could happen?”
- * Celebrate your mistakes and ask, ‘What can I learn from this experience’.?”
In conclusion, for long term emotional resilience, it is essential that you look after yourself (healthy diet, exercise and regular sleep)
- * Keep a supportive structure for your daily life; have relaxation time
- * See creativity as a time of discovery
- * Recall past achievements and write them down in a GOB book (Glimpses of brilliance as David Hyner- Motivational Speaker called it) to remind you of your success.
- * Challenge your negative thinking
- * Imagine looking back at the task in 3 or 6 months time, will it still be as important then?
Adapted from a presentation by Bob Harris and Ohemaa Nkansa Dwamena LSE Student Counselling Service
The full presentation is available from the following link http://bit.ly/p72K1m
Either Or – What a Choice!
Monday, July 11th, 2011I was standing at the cash machine at the weekend, when I heard a young Mum rushing by, talking to her 8 year old daughter “Look” she said “I only have two hours so hold my hand or you have a choice, what do you want, a punch or a kick?”.
I was shocked but I couldn’t help but smile, not because I condoned it, but what a choice! She disappeared into the crowd and I thought of Dave, who was a master of choice and lists, which he called ‘Either Or’ and how I would love to share this one with him. But unfortunately Dave, a dear friend had lost his battle with cancer just 2 days before.
To many others, and myself he was one of the most inspirational and resilient human beings that I have ever had the privilege to meet, both as a friend and latterly as a client. His ‘either or’ lists are legendary for making those around him laugh and one day I hope his family publish them, to make others smile too.
In January 2011 Dave, not unlike the little girl earlier, was given a choice that he didn’t much care for. The chemo hadn’t worked and he was told by what he called the ‘Masters of Doom’ (the NHS staff), “if we give you more chemo, it is likely to kill you within two weeks or you can do nothing and be dead by Easter’.
Dave told me about this and asked me to help him because of my visualisation expertise, knowing his body was unable to fight much more but his mind wasn’t giving up that easily.
Early on, we had some success and the unbearable pain he suffered was alleviated and we were amazed what he had achieved, and all through an easy exercise of moving the pain to another neutral part of his body, like his big toe. An early scan showed the cancer had reduced slightly so it was also promising. Ultimately after four doses of the strongest chemo ever given, (only two given to another patient previously) his body gave up, but in the process he never lost his hair or his determination.
The way we did it, was to target all the negativity that passed though his thoughts, all the fears and phobias that cropped up. We used the power of his imagination, through hypnosis and EMDR to eliminate them using his interests such as his favourite fighting film ‘Dogs of War (to protect healthy cells), A Silk Worm visit (to strengthen his stomach) and Journey to the Centre of The Earth (to go inside his body and fight disease). The initial two-week forecast of survival turned into six months, which gave him time to do some of the things he wanted to. What astonished me was that he was still going to work a couple of days each week throughout. When I asked him why, he just said he would get bored by not doing anything and he would miss it.
One of his greatest fears was the canteen at work, which he amusingly called ‘The Gap’, which was just a wide open space, he couldn’t walk through it without panicking and he laughed about how ridiculous he thought it was. But to his subconscious mind, it was real fear, and was linked to past operations and being out of control. We processed this memory and he achieved his goal of walking though ‘The Gap’ a few weeks before he died, without a care. Seven out of ten of us have real phobias like Dave’s and we just accept, ignore or avoid and carry on living with them.
We often talk about goals in business and life and about 90% of the population, don’t have them written down. One week, when Dave came over, he was feeling really down so I asked him what goals he had, and we wrote them down. It was literally like seeing life injected into his veins and he became focused and picked himself back up.
Watching Dave build his emotional resilience even more and change his thinking was fascinating and the reason I wrote this blog is to share with you, the capability of the human mind and most importantly, what we can all learn from Dave:
- Sometimes you will be given rubbish choices in life and you can either accept and wallow or you can take it on the chin and climb out of the darkness because only by doing so will you see light again.
- Get your goals for life and work written down, they will inject energy into your veins and give you the rope to climb out of the dark place, click here for an example to get you started.
- Use the power of your own mind and your interests to focus your thoughts and overcome the challenges. Use your past-times, hobbies or like Dave, your favourite films to overcome negative thoughts. Imagine what your character would do in these situations.
- Build your self-awareness, your emotional intelligence because if you become more aware of your fears and phobias, then they won’t be so debilitating. No matter how much you tell yourself they don’t bother you, believe me, mentally they control you and are not healthy.
You can watch a tribute speech, which I did for Dave earlier this year when we believed we were winning a small battle. Just copy and paste the link into your browser because it won’t work just by clicking it. http://bettakultcha.com/2011/06/angela-whitlock/
Dave was the kind of individual that made you feel like a better person just for knowing him and I hope this blog helps you as well, in some small way to reflect on your life.
Unlike the little girl earlier, who is still dependent on her parents, most of the time we do have choices. Dave chose to live as long as he could and never give up.
Take with you and reflect on what choices you do have, the challenges you face in life, that are often not life threatening and how you can start to change it all, through the power of your own subconscious mind.
From Tantrums to Team Tactics
Tuesday, July 5th, 2011
A young working parent with three children under the age of six was telling me how she had experienced a 60 minute stand off that very morning with her oldest child, who wouldn’t brush her teeth. She finally gave her an ultimatum and walked away. The little girl decided she didn’t much care for the ultimatum so decided to accept the parental challenge. Poor mum was despondent and the conflict continued.
The interesting thing is, that I know from past history that this young Mum was a very successful sales person and only gave it up to have the family. Her negotiation skills were excellent. So I asked her, what she would do differently if it wasn’t her daughter she was dealing with but a client.
“Well I wouldn’t get into an argument”, she replied “And what else would be different ?“ I asked her?
“Well I know people buy on emotion so I would sit down, make eye contact and influence my client to make it their idea so they would buy into the outcome.”
“Really” I continued “And what do you think the outcome would be?”,
“Well, the client would be satisfied with the outcome and so would I, and tooth brush and paste would have joined forces!”she said.
I reflected for a moment until the penny dropped with her and she suddenly realised ‘Oh how silly, I’m trying to use logic when I need emotional buy-in to manage the situation, why didn’t I think of that sooner?’
Sometimes we need to step back to really see a situation. I find as working parents, we have the transferable skills to deal with most scenarios but because it’s family and not work related, we don’t use those very essential skills that we would instantly use at work. This is where you can improve your self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
So next time you have the stand off, change your thinking and imagine you are in a work environment and treat your offspring with the same attitude and skills that you would use, as if they were an important client and see how it changes the outcome.
Learning From Nature
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011Teens taught to train pigeons in a bid to combat anti-social behaviour
A story I covered on Radio York this morning was the one above. I think we have a lot to learn from nature and I am always interested in creative ways that people find to re-engage teenagers.
The Lincolnshire Police have recently come up with an innovative way to involve disruptive Teens. They have been taught to train pigeons in a bid to combat anti-social behaviour
My father was always a keen Racing Pigeon owner and I know the amount of effort that went into looking after the birds. This is a great project and I can really see how they can learn so much especially adapting their body language, self awareness and managing emotions especially in such confined spaces. The birds don’t have the words to shout back but if you disrespect them the teenagers would know about it with their behaviour. It’s also such a rewarding sport.
You can read the full story, click here: Metro Online
Connecting Teenagers With The Future
Wednesday, February 16th, 2011How often do parent’s expectations get in the way of their teenagers future? Quite frequently, perhaps like me you have experienced the following:
“ Nurse’ you want to be a Nurse, have you any idea what they earn? You’re not being a Nurse”. A young person told me how they couldn’t follow their passion to be a nurse because of what their parents had told them.
But don’t kill all the dreams stone dead, I know if they want to study Medieval Poetry they are going to have to learn ‘Do you want fries with that’ but whatever the career they want to go into, is more to do with the kids than the career.
I could line you up a 747 full of dentists that discovered it’s less about people and more about spending hours inside people’s mouths, depression is very high, divorce rates are really high, perhaps your kids want to be a rock star or a professional footballer and we know the odds may be slim but on the other hand the world has professional ballerinas and they all came from somewhere. There are very few people who play for Manchester United who dreamt about being an accountant. So yes kids do need career advice they need to connect with their passions, what they love doing,
Some of this passion is evident as early as 5,6 7 years old and putting aside that all little girls want to be ballerinas or love ponies and all little boys want to be soldiers or firemen, all of which these are the occupations they can visualise but then from 10 or 12 until it’s all in there, the inclinations the passions , the instincts are all in there. They may not recognise it themselves but they don’t have enough life experience or anchor spots to hang these things on.
I do a visualisation exercise of the future with teenagers and they can tell me where they are, what they are doing, step 1 is you need to understand that your kids know a great deal more about their future than you know and when you say they are paying no attention to their future, that’s not right they are paying an enormous amount of attention to their future.
I do an exercise with teenagers that I don’t know if you can do with your own kids but some of you can and I call the exercise Teen Time-Line were I get them to visualise their future
It can give them a real insight into what is going on inside their head because I strongly believe the future is already here, they just don’t know it yet.
Absolutely, consistently and without exception they can describe to me their future in great detail but what that tells me is they are working very hard on their future. They want to know their future and they spend a great deal of time thinking about this, these are not spontaneous answers they give me, this is well thought out. And although it may not be apparent to you that they are paying attention, it may in fact be that they may not be telling you.
For an individual meeting and to learn more information about connecting your Teen with the future contact us at info@angelawhitlock.com
Teenagers and Distractions
Wednesday, February 16th, 2011
I know, your teenagers are always on Xbox, or PlayStation and never do any revising and they are doomed! But hold on a moment, as parents when we complain bitterly about all the electronic things our kids have, what were we distracted by, perhaps you remember the clackers or hula hoop that we spent hours perfecting, boy there is an on-going useful talent!
From a psychological impact point of view just how much Monty Python is good for you? If your child is spending 9 hours playing Xbox and not going to school or sleeping then you have another issue but the game is not the issue , because they can learn some useful skills, team building, managing people etc but 9 hours is addiction and that’s a whole different remit.
Parents need to set boundaries and agree them with your teen in advance because it makes life a whole lot more agreeable. Your teenager’s job is to find out where the boundary fences are, to find out how strong they are and the worst thing a teenager can find is that there are no fences.
Where you put them and how you enforce them is up to you and to do with your value system but much as they need to rebel against them, they still need to know where they are. That’s their job that’s what they are supposed to do and part of growing up.
So agree them in advance and enforce them calmly. If the deadline is 10pm to finish electronic games, then an early warning at 9:50pm. If you give in and keep allowing another 10 minutes and then another, you’ll both be frustrated and angry so for their sake and your sanity, be strong and stick to your agreements.
Coming soon are a whole host of Webinars for Parents, sign up for our newsletter to find out more using the conact form.
Whose Education Is It?
Sunday, March 28th, 2010Education Ownership
‘The only person accountable for your learning Richard is you; both your teachers and I are responsible but not accountable’. Then I explained the difference, ‘Accountability means the buck stops with you, but responsibility means we have a vested interest in seeing you succeed. Your Teachers are responsible for providing you with sufficient opportunities and appropriate content to enable you to pass exams but they can’t sit them exams for you. As a parent I can make sure you go to school and provide a food and shelter for you but I can‘t make you learn, only you can do that. Take accountability for your learning now and you’ll always own it and it will reflect in everything you do in life whether that is in exams or career.’
‘So should I tell you to revise, no because you are accountable for the learning and the more relaxed you are about it the more you learn. If you are under pressure or stressed then the learning will decrease’. He asked me how he could ensure he revised, so I suggested he do what I do in project management, write a plan of what he wanted to achieve.
Later on he was worried and nervous about the exam, so I sat down with him and I took him visually through the exam as if he was sitting it there and then, he sat the SATs exam three times until he was happy with the result in his mind. When he undertook the exams he was confident and relaxed and did the best to his ability.
These simple techniques and a few others are easy to teach kids and they can use them for the rest of their lives in many different situations.
Whitlock-Boyle Ltd run workshops for schools, colleges and universities to address the emotional challenges of ordinary kids not the gifted and behaviorally challenged children but the ones in the middle who don’t appear on the statistics who still need support. We coach on a one to one basis or in groups.
If you would like to download a top 10 tips to exam success register for my newsletter at www.angelawhitlock.com
From the Blog
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Tuesday, February 21st, 2012 - How Does Improved Work Relationships Affect Performance?
Friday, February 10th, 2012 - How To Improve Your Relationships Using ABC
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012