Happy New You!!!
January 26, 2012 at 11:49 am | Posted in Various | Leave a commentTags: Addictions, be slim, Health, New Year, New Year's resolution, Quit SMoking, Quitting, Smoking cessation, stop smoking, Substance Abuse, Tobacco
The start of a New Year is a great time to make changes, do the things you have been putting off, get out of the job you hate, change location, stop smoking, re train, get fit, get slim, get rich etc. So why is it that usually even before the end of January, those plans, goals, ideas and dreams are fading fast?
Firstly it’s not enough to just want something, usually what happens is that people look at the desired outcome, for instance “I want to be slim” or “I want to quit smoking” and this goal becomes so daunting and so far away that they quickly give up.
What you need to do is put a plan into place. Visualise the out-come, then set your self short term goals, either weekly, bi weekly or monthly. By doing this the out-come is not so overwhelming, plus when you reach each goal, you will feel a sense of achievement and be motivated to continue on to the next and the next and the next and pretty soon your overall goal is so much closer and no longer daunting.
Whilst going through this new transition always focus on ‘now’, do something every day towards your goal. Become aware of your inner state as you reach each milestone, how if feels, what is sounds like, what it looks like, learn new behaviours and thought patterns to accommodate your change of habit and this will ensure that the new way becomes the only way!
You have within you, the power and all of the resources required to be the person you truly want to be!
Happy New You !!!
Life Purpose
January 11, 2012 at 12:18 pm | Posted in Life Purpose | Leave a commentTags: achieving, inner self, Life coaching, life purpose, passionate
Have you realised your Life Purpose? Are you living it? Or are you still looking for it? We are all here for a reason and that reason is to discover our Life Purpose and to live that Purpose. What ever your Life Purpose is, its sole purpose will be to give. Now that may conjure up all sorts of ideas that may be along the wrong track, the goal is, to earn a living from something you are passionate about, something you love to do ! Whatever that is, you will find that in some way you will be giving.
My passion and Life Purpose is to help people be their absolute best and realise their dreams. To do this I studied Life Coaching and NLP and became a qualified Life Coach and Master NLP Coach. Think about people who earn a living from something they love to do, such as singers, actors, writers, poets, artists, photographers etc. They are all ‘giving’ in some way. Listen to the lyrics of a song and you will find an answer, the singer is giving, listen to music and find joy in dancing, the musician is giving! Read poetry and delight in the depth of language, the poet is giving. Look at art and delight in what you see, the artist is giving. Look at photographs and be in awe of the subject, the photographer is giving. In some way, what ever it is, once you realise and live your life purpose you will be giving. It’s nothing to do with fame, it is about passion, you may be passionate about cooking, you may bake the most amazing cakes, you may be an amazing mathematician, you may love animals, gardening, design, drawing and you may be a great speaker or a great listener or a teacher.
Life is not about dreading tomorrow and longing for the weekend, life is about realizing that every day is precious and every day is for living! It’s about looking forward to tomorrow, knowing that when you wake up your day will be filled with doing something that you love!
We all have a given talent, sometimes because that talent is something so easy to us and enjoyable, we fail to recognise it as a true talent, we assume that anyone can do it!… not so! Is there something that you could stand up and talk about with passion, something that needs no research or script because it just flows from within? This is your talent and your life purpose is to recognize and use this talent.
Look within, you have everything you need, all the answers, all the tools, the talent is yours, embrace it and use it!
New Year Coaching Offer!
January 9, 2012 at 3:03 pm | Posted in Various | Leave a commentTags: fresh start, half price, low self esteem, minute session, new beginnings, self confidence
New Year and New Beginnings!
Do you want to make a fresh start but not sure where to begin?
Are you at a crossroads in your life and not sure which way to turn?
Are you unhappy in your job?
Do you lack self confidence?
Do you have low self esteem?
Are you just stuck with no idea what to do next?
If you would like help with any of the above or any other issue, then take advantage of my New Year Offer of a half price Coaching session that will help you get back on track!
Receive a coaching session for half price between 9th January to 8th February. A 75 minute session via Telephone, Skype or Face to Face could make 2012 your year!
see website for further info or email to vicki@aaylifecoaching.com
Life is for living, not to just exist!
The choice is yours!
September 15, 2011 at 8:21 pm | Posted in Various | 1 CommentTags: Challenge, Choice, Life, Postive
We all have a story to tell, a story of our upbringing, a story of why we are who we are today. But we also have a choice. Think about the story you tell, is it a story of how tough your child hood was. Does it display the downfalls and the hardship you met through your life?
How about you look at that story from a different angle, how about you realise that actually if things had been different, you would not have done, seen, met, achieved what you have and be where you are today.
We all have a story to tell, but we also have a choice to see the positives in that story or to see the negatives. Life is about challenges, and how we get through those challenges.
Look again at your past and look for the good that the bad made possible. The next time you tell your story your heart will be lighter.
Quitting is Easy !!!
June 7, 2011 at 10:07 am | Posted in Addictions | 2 CommentsTags: Nicotine, Quit SMoking, Withdrawal
I was a smoker for over 25 years and smoked around 20 a day, probably more when socialising. I tied to quit several times because I knew it was bad for my health and each time I only lasted between three weeks to three months. I also found I put on weight, which for me, was a good excuse to start again.
Having now stopped smoking for over three years ago I still can’t believe how easy it was! The only thing that was different this time was my mind-set. This time I stopped purely because I wanted to, not because I thought I should, or because it was the right thing to do, or to please anyone else. This time I stopped for me, because I truly wanted it. I didn’t have to prepare myself or psyche myself up for it or pick a date. I decided to stop one morning in the garden whilst smoking my first cigarette of the day. I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the patio window and saw the smoke coming from my mouth, I decided there and then that this would be my last cigarette, I took the last puff and said out loud ”I will never smoke again”. I knew from that minute that I was now a non smoker. When my partner came home that evening, I told him, he laughed and asked “since when”? I replied “I stopped this morning”.
There were times when I thought of a cigarette but I knew that this was just the nicotine in my bloodstream getting low and wanting a top up. I also knew that soon the nicotine would be gone. At stressful times when I would normally have a cigarette, I wondered how I ever came to believe that having a cigarette could help or change any situation. I actually felt calmer for not smoking and this time I did not put on any weight. There are smokers who are overweight so smoking is clearly not a slimming aid. I realise now that the only reason I put on weight previously was because I felt deprived and therefore needed a substitute, which for me was food! When you stop with the right mind-set there is no need for a substitute because you do not feel deprived in any way. You have made a choice for you and you are in total control.
Some people say they don’t want to quit because they ‘enjoy it’. What is there to enjoy? There is nothing enjoyable about breathing smoke into your lungs. You don’t smoke because you enjoy it; you smoke because you are addicted. Smoking will increase as time goes by because even more nicotine is required to maintain the level of satisfaction.
Many people use patches and other aids to help kick the habit, and if this works for you then great, however personally I don’t see the point, because although they say nicotine is just as addictive as Heroin the actual withdrawal symptoms are zilch in comparison.
If you truly have a desire to stop you won’t need any help at all. All you need is to make the choice. You can achieve and conquer anything once you have the true desire to do so.
We are conditioned to believe that quitting is hard, that there are numerous withdrawal symptoms, that it will be so difficult you will need counseling or need nicotine patches to help you! This is simply brain washing! If this was true then you would need a patch on your arm every night to get you through the eight hours or so of sleep to the next morning!
Having now discovered NLP I realise I put myself in a new state of mind, the state of mind of a non smoker! In the time it had taken me to smoke a cigarette I had changed my association with smoking
Smokers associate smoking with pleasure and quitting with pain. When I saw myself in the window, I immediately associated smoking with disgust. I didn’t have to quit I just stopped.
Contact me if you would like more info.
Procrastination is just a Bad Habit!
May 29, 2011 at 1:51 pm | Posted in Various | Leave a commentTags: Procrastination, self talk, strategy
We are all guilty of procrastination at times, we put things off because its a boring or difficult task and we have much more interesting enjoyable things to do. However once procrastination becomes a part of your normal behaviour it can cause a negative impact on your life.
You start to put off important things like paying bills and end up paying penalty fees. You put off revision and end up not completing your studies which then leads to not moving on in your career. Sometimes fear of the unknown is the cause of procrastination, for instance, you hate your job but in order to apply for others you must update your CV. You keep putting it off and every week moaning about your job but the perfect excuse keeps popping up and allows you to remain in your safe haven.
Procrastination can also cause anxiety, the more you keep putting the said task off the more anxious you become and soon you are even anxious when you are completing tasks that you enjoy. Procrastinators also sabotage themselves with their ‘self talk‘ , telling themselves “dam it, I am useless, if only I had got that completed sooner” Why am I so slow, “Why cant I just get on with stuff “.
If you are concerned that your procrastination is a problem then it is time to do something about it.
Chronic procrastinators are not lazy people and nor do they lack good time management skills and nor were they born this way. Procrastination is a habit and all habits can be overcome. We all have strategies for everything we do; our morning routine is our strategy for getting to work on time. Once you define the strategy behind your procrastination you can then install a new strategy that gets the desired outcome. A new strategy that works for you, that gets the job done and out of the way, once this is done you can praise yourself, tell yourself how brilliant you are and how organised you are. This in turn will alleviate all the anxiety surrounding your procrastination.
So how do you define the current strategy and install a new one?
Spend some time concentrating on the last time you procrastinated.
- What was the first thought you had
- What was your self talk telling you
- How did you feel
- Where did you feel it (in your chest? in your stomach? in your head?)
- What did you visualise
- What did you hear
Go through every step and note everything down. Once you recognize this as the pattern for your procrastination the next time the pattern begins you will be aware of every step. You will no longer go through your normal strategy at an unconscious level.
So if your first thought is “Can’t be bothered I’ll do it later”
Replace this with -
“I’ll do it now, get it out of the way and then I can relax”
If your self talk is “there is no rush I could do it tomorrow”
Replace this with
“If I do it now it will be another item off of my to do list”
Once you have replaced every step with a new step you now have your new strategy and all you need to do is put in place.
Now every time a task appears your new strategy goes into play and pretty soon this will be undertaken at the same unconscious level as the old strategy.
So spend time understanding why you procrastinate and experiment with new strategies. Remember your old strategy grew into a habit over time so don’t expect an instant change. But slowly you can change the behaviour little by little and always praise yourself for your hard work!!!
You can do this!! J
No More Weighting!
May 27, 2011 at 5:42 pm | Posted in Weight Loss | 1 CommentTags: Diet, NLP, Weight
We all have habits and those habits become a part of us. Habits are routines of behaviour that are regularly repeated without us noticing. We practice our habits at an unconscious level. Habits are stored in the unconscious mind, which is sometimes referred to as the ‘ habitual mind’ because of this.
Habits follow a pattern and they become our behaviour. We learn habits and we learn patterns, therefore we can un learn them.
Instead of continually dieting and weighing yourself, spend some time to examine your eating patterns and habits.
What is it that makes you rush for the chocolate or the biscuits? Is it a feeling? Can you name that feeling? Once you can identify WHY you will then know WHEN and you can learn HOW to break the habits and patterns.
- Find the pattern
- Break the pattern
- End the habit
NLP techniques will enable you to discover why you have weight issues so that you can then re programme your mind. By dieting you are treating the symptoms! Deal with the cause and there will no longer be any need for dieting.
See my website for further info.
Finding your True Potential!
May 15, 2011 at 8:36 pm | Posted in Life Purpose | 1 CommentTags: Life coaching, Potential, talent
Do you know and recognize your talent? Or like me is it buried so deep inside that you can no longer remember or find it. I didn’t discover my true talent until the age of 50. Of course it was there staring me in the face and always had been. I only discovered it after redundancy gave me time to think about me. I thought long and hard about what I enjoyed, I looked back over my life and searched deep inside and still could not find the answer. I decided to see a Life Coach. I started searching the internet and the more I learned about Life Coaching the more interested I became. There was alight bulb moment when I realised that through my life I had always tried to help people. If a friend or family member came to me moaning and groaning, I wouldn’t just moan and groan along with them, I would try to find an answer for them to make everything right. Finally I realised my Talent, my true passion was for helping people to be their absolute best.
I knew this was right for me because it made me feel alive, it made me feel excited and it made me determined. Even though people said it wouldn’t work or that it was a huge market and I was wasting my time and money, I didn’t listen to them; I listened to my inner self.
Once you know what you want it will not go away until you bring it to realisation. If you ignore it, it will keep coming back, in some way, shape or form; you will keep getting reminders, messages, see something, and hear something from friends, strangers, the TV or the radio.
How many times have you said to yourself “I wish I had done that when I had the chance”, or “If I had my time over again I would have done……….”.
It’s never too late, there is only now. The past is gone and can’t be changed; the future is unknown, which leaves the present. If you know there is something you want to do then don’t wait any longer just do it! If it means re training, don’t let this put you off, there are so many ways to train that can and will fit around your current commitments.
Feel the fear and do it anyway!
Self Belief
May 11, 2011 at 5:18 pm | Posted in Self Confidence | Leave a commentTags: Confidence, negative, positive, self belief
Many factors affecting self confidence are beyond our control but we alone are responsible for our thoughts and our self talk.
We can sabotage our lives with negative thoughts and negative beliefs. How often have you not done something because you lacked self belief? Or because you were worried what people would think.
No body else can make you feel anything about yourself only you control your mind and the unconscious mind does not accept negatives and will therefore accept everything you tell it as a positive.
Think about what you tell yourself over and over. If you constantly tell yourself you won’t succeed or that you are fat or that you are useless then this is what you project outwardly.
You were not born with a lack of self confidence and negative beliefs, it was something you learned along the way and therefore you can unlearn it.
It may take a little time and practice but you can learn to master positive beliefs just as well as you mastered negative beliefs.
- Begin with monitoring your self talk and replace negatives with positives. When you feel you won’t succeed, tell yourself you will, if you want to be slim, tell yourself you are slim, if you feel useless tell yourself you are brilliant and can achieve anything you desire. If you concentrate on what you don’t want then you will get more of what you don’t want. The law of attraction is very powerful so concentrate on what you want!
- Use affirmations such as “I am unique, brilliant, fit and intelligent and no one can take this away from me” – look in the mirror and repeat last thing at night and first thing in the morning
- You can never know what anyone else is thinking about you so why try to imagine what they are thinking. If you want to imagine what someone is thinking, then imagine they are thinking how brilliant you are, how fit you are and how confident you are.
- When ever self doubt creeps in imagine what you would tell someone else who was in the exact same position.
- Try visualization exercises and anchor a positive state of mind; close your eyes and see yourself confident, calm and in control. See and feel and hear everything around you. Make the vision brighter and panoramic and when it is at its peak then gently squeeze your right earlobe or touch a knuckle. You can then use this pressure point as an anchor when ever you want to recreate this state of mind. The more you do this, the more you’ll find that you’ll quite naturally start to become like the confident you in the visualization.
Only you control you and when you start to believe in you then others will too!
What Talent ?
April 28, 2011 at 9:55 am | Posted in Life Purpose | Leave a commentTags: passionate, talent, unique
We are all unique and we all have a talent, something we are passionate about. Whilst coaching I have come across many people who fail to realise they have a talent. With some more digging, of course, they soon realise this is not the case.
I have come to realise that it is because our talents come easy to us that we fail to recognize them as anything special.
I have a young nephew who can play the guitar beautifully, when I commented on this he said “oh its easy, anyone can do it!
I also know someone who takes the most amazing photographs, and again when I commented on this they replied ‘it’s the camera not me’.
Some people realise their talent and have chosen to use it and some even earn a living from it! They are living the dream!
I wonder how many people are letting their talents go to waste!
What is your talent?
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