Change is a process... not an event
‘I’m not really good at anything. What’s the point in trying?’ ‘Why does everything always go wrong for me’? ‘Why does my manager always find fault with me’? ‘If I could just lose some weight I’d be happy.’ I am stupid. I am unlucky,. I am not enough and so on... Sound familiar?
What we say to ourselves daily has the absolute power to support and uplift our life or harm and destroy it.
We all have similar lists of complaints, unresolved issues and painful memories and experiences that make us feel unhappy from time to time. However, for some people these daily stories that they tell themselves are negative reminders of all they think they are not and as a result they are at the mercy of mood swings, frustrations and invariably they feel trapped or stuck!
Each year large sums of money get spent by thousands of people looking for ways to live a better and more visible life. In many cases, these are short cuts for solutions and are avoidance techniques and excuse trips. Never underestimate the human capacity for self deception!
To bring about change within your life means making an emotional commitment and being willing to experience some level of uncomfortableness as you step away from your comfort zone. Real change is not a quick fix solution wrapped up in a box of short term promises. When you are ready for permanent change, you become prepared to develop an awareness of yourself and others through deliberate practice. It includes learning how to communicate with yourself and others in a more effective and productive way.
At a recent coaching session on assertiveness my client was finding it difficult to overcome constant criticism from her manager. For years she had held the belief that people in authority should not be questioned nor challenged, regardless of the situation. At an unconscious level, this same person began to direct criticism at her co-workers and colleagues in the same manner that she experienced from her manager. This cycle of behaviour not only impacted on her relationships with others at work as a result of her faulty thinking about people in authority but it began to have a significant effect on her self-esteem and confidence.
On closer inspection she also began to realise that in other situations within her personal life she also took a back seat approach to things, seldom expressing her thoughts, feelings and needs to others. As a result of her faulty thinking and behaviour she enabled others to manipulate and take advantage of her.
For a long time this person desperately sought change, however she was expecting others to change. Her lightbulb moment was in her understanding that for change to happen she had to change herself, her beliefs and behaviours first – from ‘ the inside out’. You must grow from the inside out; there is no one person better placed to direct you, other than yourself. And change is not a one off event, it’s a process!
“We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in the future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.” Swami Vivekananda