DO YOU KNOW YOUR GOOD POINTS?

A Retreat at Anam Cara will enable you to more routinely be aware of and living from your best possible life.

This is an extremely helpful exercise. Guaranteed to make you feel good if you take the time to write down the answers to the following questions.

• What do you like about yourself, however small and fleeting?
• What positive qualities do you possess?
• What have you achieved in your life, however small?
• What challenges have you faced?
• What gifts or talents do you have, however modest?
• What skills have you acquired?
• What do other people like or value in you?
• What qualities and actions that you value in others do you share?
• What aspects of yourself would you appreciate if they were aspects of another person?
• What small positives are you discounting?
• What are the bad things you are not?
• How might another person who cared about you describe you?

Grace Chatting

CREATE YOU PERFECT DAY!

Do you tend to let outer circumstances set the tone for each day? Do you allow other people and events to stir up feelings of dread, anxiety, anger, frustration, impatience and more?

When you do this, you are giving your power away! Learn to use the Law of Attraction to turn every day into a perfect day. You do this by using intentions and visualization to create your day.

When you first wake up in the morning, spend 10 minutes or so thinking about the types of things you'd like to experience that day.

• What kind of a day do you want at work?
• What type of people would you like to have around you?
• Would you love to have opportunities to advance your career or financial situation?
• How would you like your day to be when you finish work?

Get yourself a journal or notebook and jot these details down! Next spend a few minutes vividly imagining each scenario in your mind, exactly as you would like it to happen. Pretend you're watching a movie in your mind, seeing it all play out exactly as you'd like it to.

Most importantly, allow yourself to feel as if it was all actually happening now. Immerse yourself in feelings of excitement, joy, happiness and gratitude as you enjoy one great experience after another. Use this same process for every experience you'd like to have that day.

By the time you're finished you should be feeling fantastic; buzzing with good spirits and high expectations!

Then continue with your normal routine, taking special care not to be "attached" to any specific events or experiences, just simply staying open to whatever comes. Keep affirming that great things are going to happen to you that day, and you feel great about all of the blessings and abundance in your life.

At the same time, avoid getting entangled in feelings of worry, anxiety, frustration, and anger as much as possible throughout the day because those feelings will interfere with the positive energy you've already put out.

As often as you can remember, call to mind images of the things you visualized earlier and allow good feelings to flow over you again. Affirm and know that wonderful things are happening, even if you don't see them quite yet.

By using this process on a daily basis, you'll eventually start to notice that good things are starting to happen. You'll find yourself being in the "right place at the right time" and generally enjoying greater opportunities and abundance.

Grace Chatting

GOAL SETTING FOR SUCCESS IN SIX EASY STEPS

Everyone has dreams and wants, but most people don't know what they are. Most of our Coaching sessions begin with the question "What do you want?" The usual reply is "I don't know". Deep down people know, but not consciously. The biggest issue: Where to start?

Step One: What do you want?

One way of finding this out is to answer the question, "What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?" Watch out for those automatic thoughts that pop up giving you reasons why you couldn't do it, or presenting all the obstacles. Ignore these thoughts. Allow yourself to wonder. Wondering is different to thinking. It comes from your right hemisphere, whereas thinking is from the left. It doesn't matter how impossible what you come up with seems. If it is what you really want. Still taking charge of all the thoughts that pop up to negate your dream, allow yourself to enjoy the idea of you having whatever it is you want to have.

Step Two: Writing down your goals.

The difference between a pipe dream and a realistic one is the ability to turn that dream into an achievable goal. Goal setting can be useful to anyone who has ever dreamed of something, but haven't been able to achieve it, yet.

The next step is writing down your goals. Seeing your desires on paper can help you see whether or not your wants are realistic and if they are something you actually want, instead of something that just sounds good.

When setting goals, it is important that your goals are SMART, i.e. specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time limited.

If your goal is a big house, expensive car, or haute couture clothing, maybe you should take some time to do a little soul searching before you start setting your goals, because those goals can only change the way people think about you, not the way you think about yourself. Goals should be centred on your inner self, and aimed at self improvement and increased self-confidence.

Once you have written down your goals, review them and ask yourself:

1. Why are these goals important to me?
2. What do I ultimately want to accomplish with these goals?
3. Are these goals realistic?
4. How will I accomplish these goals?

Step Three: Devise a plan to achieve your goals.

Once you have decided that your goals are for the right purpose and that you are ready to begin, start by devising a plan of attack. Rome wasn't built in a day, so using baby steps to get the ball rolling is probably the best way to start. If you want to get in better shape, start by walking around the block, not by running the London Marathon.

The first step will always be the hardest, usually because of self-doubt, but once you take that first leap into achieving your goals, your feelings of accomplishment at each step can propel you to the end of your goal.

Step Four: Stay focused on your goals.

Being focused on your goals is extremely important and keeping at it, even in the face of adversity, will only make you stronger. Conflict is great for character building, and becoming a happier, healthier you, should be the most important goal for anyone. Cut out some images representing the achievement of your goals. Make a Vision board. This will help you to focus by regularly visualising.

Step Five: Review your goals

Doing a daily review of your goals is essential to keep you focused on the prize. Checking off the steps as you have achieved them will help fuel your fire to attain the end result. Doing a weekly review of your goals is a good way to see just how far you have come, and will help you focus on the road ahead.

Everyone deserves success, and everyone can achieve success. When you write down your goals, you take that first step to becoming the person that you've always dreamed of becoming. You can do it, just grab a pen and paper, and start down the path of success, today.

Step Six: Find a Personal Coach

Having a Personal coach will help you to determine and set goals for what you really want in all the important areas of your life, such as health, career, home, relationships, leisure, friends, family and money. Your Coach will enable you to focus and stay on track, constantly moving closer and closer towards manifesting a new you!

Most importantly a good Coach will help you to achieve, not just success in what you do, but also a happy and fulfilled life.

Grace Chatting

MOTIVATION: PUSH, PULL OR DRIFT?

I regularly meet clients who are suffering from stress or burnout. Long hours at the office, taking work home for the weekend, "to do" lists which are never completed, are all indicators of this problem.

Usually the body overrides the person who is working like this, with illness, anxiety attacks or depression. The person will often feel totally burnt out and only prolonged rest, often complemented by counselling and anti-depressant medication, will help. Such a person is nearly always conscientious, helpful, supportive of colleagues and family, and keen to achieve, but they have pushed themselves too hard and too far.

So what are the alternatives?
We all know people who didn't look ahead, who didn't make provision for the future, who didn't take out insurance, who didn't bother at school, who borrow more than they can repay. They seem to drift through life, and they often drift from one crisis to another saying things like "why does it always happen to me?" (See "Why does it always happen to me? - How to stop being a victim - in preparation.) Many of us are actually a bit scared of being like that and will push ourselves, especially if Mum or Dad used to say "you don't want to end up like the Smiths at number 35!"

Most of us want to get on in life. Perhaps because our parents said we should, or we see our peers moving on in their lives, or we have always had certain desires. We may want to have a good education, a new job, a family, a partner, to achieve a desire to travel or to climb a mountain. Whatever it is, and wherever it comes from, it seems to be a human characteristic to strive for more. Many humans who are recognised by history have been those who strove to achieve more.

The key skill in achievement is the ability to "defer gratification", to put off enjoyment now so that we can have it in the future. A good example of this is saving money in a pension fund so that we can be affluent when we retire, or working at an education so that we can enjoy a better career. When we do these things, we learn to push ourselves so that we can overcome the discomfort, effort and waiting so that we can have the good things later.

It seems that there are two alternatives - drift through life until disaster catches up with us, or push ourselves, having no fun and risking overwork and burnout. But wait! There is a third way, a way to make progress in life, without drifting, in a more positive and user-friendly way, and this is to pull rather than push yourself. It works like this:

• Allow yourself some quiet time and space to be with yourself. If this is difficult, find a supportive friend or a coach to help you.
• Write down the details of the person you would like to be in five years time
• Describe in detail the life you will lead, the work you will be doing, how your relationships will be, what choices you will make, what your physical health will be.
• Really allow yourself to become involved in this vision, getting the feel of how it would be to live like that
• Don't forget the personal attributes of your future self - calm, unhurried, relaxed under pressure, able to delegate, in control of his/her life, making healthy choices - whatever is important to you
• Imagine that your future self was here to talk to you. You might even write down a dialogue, or imagine it in your head. What decisions would they suggest you make? What would their view be of your lists and your stressful life? What would they say about your health or your relationship? How would they help you to move into your ideal future?
• Start to make your decisions based on whether they move you towards your ideal future - this will be less energy draining than pushing yourself

The power of this approach is that you start to feel pulled into an ideal future which you can vividly imagine, by the future you who you can also vividly imagine. This is much easier than struggling blindly with a list of tasks which may or may not be taking you where you want to go!

Alan Chatting

Suggested reading: Making your Dreams Come True, by Mark Forster

COUNSELLING OR COACHING -
YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE ILL TO WANT TO CHANGE!

Sometimes I notice that a theme emerges in my work when several clients with something in common will present to me within a few days or weeks.

This happened recently when three young men came to me for different issues - bereavement, relationship break-up and depression. The issues were straightforward to work with and all the men made good progress and felt better within two or three sessions. However, they were looking for something more.

At this time a useful question I ask is "how do you see yourself in five (or three or ten) year's time?" This often changes the nature of the session, because we start looking ahead rather than healing hurts. I usually ask some useful questions, such as:

• What is the difference between your current situation and your ideal future?
• What do you need to do or be, to achieve it?
• What are the different options you could take?
• What problems do you foresee achieving this ideal future?
• Can it be broken down into steps?
• What do you need to do now to start this process?

These are coaching questions, but they have a powerful healing value. They all assume that someone has the power to take action and take charge of their life. This may be a new or dormant aspect of the person's character, and I can encourage this healthy part of the person to develop.

A focus on healthy growth seems to have a reducing effect on a person's view of their problems and so they don't seem to matter as much. This idea was introduced to modern therapy by Steve de Shazer with his Solution-Focussed Therapy.

As a counsellor turned coach I find that the use of coaching skills in my counselling work adds an aspect of growth in the people I work with, so they don't have to stop when they feel better but can use our existing work to build a new future.

If you want to get more out of life, and you feel dissatisfied, try this process:

• Make a decision to ignore what you see as failings or weaknesses. Often these are not real, but unhelpful beliefs which we might have grown up with.
• Decide that you will replace the phrases "I can't do that" and "people like me don't go to university" with "I could do that if I wanted to" and "I could make that happen if I really worked at it"

Now try asking yourself these questions:

• What would I do or be if I knew I couldn't fail?
• What would I like to do or be in five year's time?
• What's missing in my life?
• What problems will I need to overcome?
• What are the first steps I need to take?

All three young men are making plans for their future now, one to go to university, one to set up his own business and the third to take up a new job in another area. They all feel that they have largely moved on from the problems which they brought to me.

Alan Chatting

Suggested reading: Be your own Life Coach - Fiona Harrold

See also: MOTIVATION: PUSH, PULL OR DRIFT?

Life coaching, Life coach, Life coaching courses, Personal development, Retreat, Coaching Courses

THE LAW OF ATTRACTION

What you focus on tends to expand.

If you put more focus on things that bring you joy, fulfilment and success, you'll tend to get more of those things. However, if you put your focus on complaint, struggle and failure you'll tend get more of those things.

People sometimes read some wild things into the law of attraction: "If I get cancer, does it mean that I attracted it?" Well, I don't know, but when I'm sick I certainly know I don't make myself any better if I obsess on how bad I feel.

The classic metaphor for the law of attraction is when you plan to buy a new car - say a silver Mercedes. And then you start to notice silver Mercedes everywhere you go, when before you didn't used to notice them at all.

Did you manifest silver Mercedes showing up? I really doubt it, but with a shift of focus on silver Mercedes you simply notice them more. You're tuned into silver Mercedes and there they are.

When we focus on something, such as a goal, a plan, a wish, we start noticing things that start to lead us towards our focus.

The law of attraction isn't a big mystery, yet it is true that we don't usually take full advantage of it. We can do simple, yet powerful things to increase our focus - on anything.

Everyone's heard of visualization. But have you ever really applied it? Before a presentation or workshop I always take a few minutes to visualize a positive and uplifting outcome. Now, I'm rarely surprised that things turn out so well.

And what if you want to buy something that you don't currently have the money for? Make a commitment to buy it. Set a date. That's another kind of focus. In the wake of that commitment, I promise you that all kinds of ideas and plans will pop into your mind about how you can get the money together.

Most people say, "I can't afford it," and just give up.

As I see it, the secret about the law of attraction is that you actually need to do something to kick start it. It doesn't take a lot of struggle and effort but a simple understanding that what we focus on tends to expand.

What do you want to expand in your life?

Start focusing on what you want! Do not get distracted by old conditioning that tells you why you can't have it. The law of attraction is the simple but powerful action of focus in your life. As focus and clarity increase you start to notice that you no longer need to struggle to get what you want, but that it happens naturally and joyfully.

Grace Chatting

Learn more about the law of attraction with a week of residential Life Coaching in the beautiful Andalucian hillside. BOOK NOW

THE MOST VALUABLE QUESTION YOU MAY EVER ASK

As you begin to take action toward the fulfillment of your goals and dreams, you must realize that not every action will be perfect.

Not every action will produce the desired result. Not every action will work.

Making mistakes, getting it almost right, and experimenting to see what happens are all part of the process of eventually getting it right.

Thomas Edison is reported to have tried over 2,000 different experiments that failed before he finally got the light bulb to work. He once told a reporter that, from his perspective, he had never failed at all. Inventing the light bulb was just a 2,000-step process. If you can adopt that attitude, then you can be free to take an action, notice what result you get, and then adjust your next actions based on the feedback you have received.

Ready, Fire, Aim!

Don't be afraid to just jump in and get started moving toward your goals. As long as you pay attention to the feedback you receive, you will make progress. Just getting into the game and firing allows you to correct and refine your aim.

The Most Valuable Question You May Ever Learn

In the 1980s, a multimillionaire businessman taught me a question that radically changed the quality of my life. So what is this magical question that can improve the quality of every relationship you are in, every product you produce, every service you deliver, every meeting you conduct, every class you teach and every transaction you enter into?

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the quality of our relationship during the last week?"

Here are a number of variations on the same question that have served me well over the years...

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate…

our service? our product? this meeting? our performance? my coaching/managing? my parenting/babysitting?

my teaching? this class/seminar/workshop? our date/vacation? this meal? this book/recording/show?

Any answer less than a 10 always gets this follow-up question:

"What would it take to make it a 10?"

This is where the *really* valuable information comes from. Knowing that a person is dissatisfied is not enough. Knowing in detail what will satisfy them gives you the information you need to do whatever it takes to create a winning product, service or relationship.

There Are Two Kinds of Feedback

There are two kinds of feedback you might encounter - negative and positive. We tend to prefer the positive - that is, results, money, praise, promotion, raise, awards, happiness, inner-peace, etc. It feels betters. It tells us we are on course and doing the right thing.

We tend not to like negative feedback - lack of results, little or no money, criticism, poor evaluations, complaints, unhappiness, inner conflict, pain, etc.

However, there is as much useful data in negative feedback as there is in positive feedback. It tells us that we are off course, headed in the wrong direction, doing the wrong thing. This is priceless information!

In fact, it's so valuable that one of the most useful projects you could undertake is to change how you respond to negative feedback. I like to refer to negative feedback as information for "improvement opportunities." Here is a place where I can get better.

Ask Yourself for Feedback

In addition to asking others for feedback, you need to ask yourself for feedback, too. More than any other source of feedback, your body will tell you whether or not you are on course or not. When you are relaxed and happy, your body is telling you that you are on track. When you are constantly exhausted, tense, in pain, unhappy and angry, then you are off track.

Take time to listen to what your body is saying to you. Take time to listen to your physical sensations and your feelings. They are sending you important messages. Are you listening?

Remember, Feedback Is Simply Information

You don't have to take it personally. Just welcome it and use it.

© 2007 Jack Canfield

Jack Canfield, America's Success Coach, is the founder and co-creator of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and a leading authority on Peak Performance. If you're ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com

See also: MOTIVATION: PUSH, PULL OR DRIFT?

Life coaching, Life coach, Life coaching courses, Personal development, Retreat, Coaching Courses

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