We all want to improve the quality of our life, don’t you too?

Although improving the quality of life is what we all want dearly most people don’t know where to start. One proven way is to schedule a coaching session to help clarify priorities and define an action plan. If you want to try this feel free to get in touch for a free initial session.

However, for a variety of reasons, some people aren’t quite ready yet to commit to a coaching relationship.

For those and for others who are simple interested in personal development I have recently  launched an initiative called the Club of Qualities. This weekly meeting, open to all, aims to discuss informally a personal quality that when developed will help improve the quality of our personal and professional lives. You could consider it a chilled-out group coaching session.

I have designed the Club of Qualities as a program that gets Club Members to focus their attention on one quality each week. People can join one, a few or all meetings depending on their level of interest in the week’s quality being discussed. Yesterday, our fifth meeting in Lisbon (but online presence is available for our international guests) we discussed the quality of altruism.

The previous four qualities were: curiosity, resilience, ambition and efficiency.  The next will be self-confidence. You get the gist I guess. In the first round there will be 52 i.e. one per week for a full year.

The format is fairly straightforward yet strikingly effective. We start by defining what the quality means as this isn’t always as clear as one may think. Clarity about what each quality is about is of paramount importance to facilitate and ground the discussion. Participants then share suggestions and experiences about how to develop or better manage the quality being discussed. The open and informal discussion is very enriching and provides some great food for thought and action. Finally participants are given a week, until the next meeting, to observe and develop the quality in the context of their life.

I am sharing this because I think it is a simple yet powerful initiative to gain focus and strength to develop a set of individual qualities on a weekly basis. The end goal is to pull together the weekly improvements so that the whole is more than the sum of the parts.

I am pleased to report that the Club of Qualities is delivering what it promises as participants are not only enjoying the meetings but also experiencing tangible progress in their weekly personal development journey.

Should anyone be interested in joining the Club of Qualities please do get in touch.

Join us in improving the quality of our respective lives one quality/week at a time.

To celebrate the new year I have just published my book Happiness Design: How to Design Your Ideal Life and Make it Happen. It’s now available on Amazon.com (.co.uk, .it., .es, etc.)

The book is about happiness. More specifically it’s about designing happiness. In other words it’s about learning how to define, clarify, plan and realize your very own set of conditions that, when fulfilled, make you feel happy.

In the book I include step by step instructions on how to figure out what is important to you and leverage that knowledge to generate life plan options, pick the best and make it happen.

I introduce practical tools and techniques from the field of applied psychology including Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Interpersonal Communications, TimeLine Therapy as well as more practical considerations coming from the field of change management and project planning.

I wrote this book the way I live my life: with passion. I hope it will inspire you to take your life’s design in your own hands and to live your ideal life on your own terms.  

You can get it for free on Amazon only from Wednesday 22nd of January to Saturday 25th of January  and again on Thursday February 13th via this link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HVI3VQO 
After this promotion it will be available for purchase any time via the same link. 

If you go for the free download option I would appreciate your constructive reviews to help position it on amazon.com.
Feel free to share the book with those you care about.

 Wishes of a happy and productive 2014!

In the previous post I have explained a technique to help you break a tie when facing a difficult decision. That technique may not be suited to those who require a more structured way to make decisions. This post, as promised, offers such a more analytical technique to help you make the right decision.

Let’s see how.

Building on your list of values (see earlier posts) identify the top five to ten or so criteria that you will use to assess your options.

Tip: Ideally you would want to use a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel to go through this as it makes the process easier. However you can also do it with paper and pencil with the help of a calculator.

Step 1. List the options you are considering in each row one below the other.

Step 2. Place your criteria next to each other column by column.

Now that you have your criteria and your options lined up it is time to bring them together and see what happens.

Step . 3 Distribute 100 points across your criteria.

Imagine having 100 coins and having to split them up so that every criteria gets a few. Try to avoid just dividing them up evenly (e.g. 20 points to each of the 5 criteria) as this reduced your ability to gain useful insights.

Step 4. Assess each option against each of your criteria

Start with the first option and score it from 0 (min) to 10 (max) against each criteria. In your Excel or paper grid this means placing a number from 0 to 10 in the cell where the option (row) meets the criteria (column). Work your way horizontally until you have gone through all the criteria for the option under assessment.

Step 5. Adjust the score to take into account the weight of each criteria

To do this, simply multiply the score in each cell in a given column for the weight of each criteria to which column it belongs. Example if option 1 vs. Criteria A scored 8 then you need to multiply 8 by how many points you had previously attributed to Criteria A (e.g. 20 out of 100). Result: 8x20=160.

Step 6. Repeat column by column until you have worked out all the weighted scores by cell.

Step 7. Sum up the totals row by row.

Now you are ready to reap the benefits of your analysis  by adding up the weighted scores cell by cell, row by row. This will give you the score of each option (row). At this point you are finally ready to rank options and determine which one carries a greater total score and therefore which one better fulfils overall your criteria.

And there you have it, staring at you in the face: the highest scoring option, the one that ranks top seems to be the one right for you.

Note: It may prove helpful to take into account the probabilities of each option to turn out the way you expect it to. If you do so assign a probability to each and multiply the option by this % value. Examples option 2 may have a higher score (say with a total of 450) but is only 60% likely to turn out as expected. So multiply 450 x 60%. This resulting value is the realistic score of your option.

Step 8. Review the results and pick your option.

Whatever the outcome of this process was: congratulations!

***

So is time for you to make decisions?

As the new year approaches this could be the right time. Decisions followed by actions that bring you closer to you desired outcomes.

As mentioned in the last post we sometimes experience inner conflicts. These arise when we seem to want two apparently opposite things. In the context of career one could be torn between the need to embrace a creative project-based venture but fear the risks that this path could bring in terms of security of income and therefore feel the need to stay put in their current employment.

It is important to deal with inner conflicts but sometimes it isn’t even easy to know exactly what parts are in conflicts in the first place. Confusion may be paralyzing. So the first step is to understand exactly what the conflict is about. Ask yourself what two main parts are at war. In the example above it boils down to a death-match between the need for variety versus that for stability. If you are not familiar with the six fundamental human needs and the concept of values I recommend that you read through some of the older posts about this fascinating topic.

Once this is understood you are ready to move on. This is how you can do it in a simple yet effective way. Doing this little exercise will help you access your subconscious mind without complicating everything with analytical thinking.

If you are ready I challenge you to take willingly suspend your disbelief and take a little step into the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

First imagine placing each part into each hand. Visualize and feel each part and everything it aspires to i.e. it’s positive intention.

Now close your eyes, breathe deeply and feel the weight of each part on each hand ad simply feel which hand seems to weight the more.

Just take in what your subconscious mind is telling you by noticing what happens to your hands. As soon as one starts feeling a bit heavier than the other you’ll know what your inner self values the most. It may manifest itself as just a slight feeling but if you care to pay attention you will notice it. Remember you are trying to break a tie here. So even a minor difference makes the difference. If you are sensitive enough you should be able to detect which part, literally, carries more weight. Now you know which need or set of conflicting needs is more important relative to the other and this will point the right way.

If this process doesn’t yield a clear winner of if you are finding it hard to let go of one of the parts you may want to take this another level. The harder it is for you to come to a clear-cut preference the greater the conflict because each part is important and needs to be satisfied. It has justly been noted the most intense wars are the civil wars, just as the most vivid and rending personal conflicts are internal ones.

If this is so you should be prepared to try to find a negotiated agreement. Just like civil wars inner conflicts are not about securing a one-sided absolute victory but rather to establish a new balance of power that respects both sides so that they can co-exist and  cooperate for the common good. What is this common good? What is this higher-level meta-objective? What are both parts trying to obtain? As you go through this exercise you are focusing on the commonalities as opposed to the differences. As the Israeli statesman Simon Peres once said: “When you have two alternatives, the first thing you have to do is to look for the third that you didn't think about, that doesn't exist.”

If you are ready to find this third way engage in an inner talk where you become the mediator between the two parts. Speak to them by ensuring that each part recognizes the positive intention of the other and broker an agreement by which each part will accept to reach a middle ground solution.

Although this may seem a bit strange as you go through this neuro-linguistic programming process you are creating the conditions for your subconscious mind to be open to a creative solution to manifest itself. The answer is already within you. A helpful belief to have is that there is always a third way possible.

Remind yourself and the parts of the existence of the third way, a negotiated compromise, that will secure a greater common good. This is how to do it:

Step 1: Close your eyes, breathe deeply and simply join your two hands slowly. 

Step 2: As they approach feel the positive intent in each hand and visualize it turning into a magnetic field that progressively stretches out as it is attracted by its approaching counterpart. 

Step 3: As you hands finally connect just let the two parts mix and become one. Keep on breathing, clear your mind and let any ideas or insights manifest. 

Chance are you will come up with a third way that combines both parts’ positive intentions into a new greater solution that offers you at the very least a starting point to reframe your dilemma. In some cases you will see an embryonic plan or option shaping up in your mind. Take it and work with it. You are witnessing and experiencing a higher state of consciousness that will help you to get unstuck.

In the example above you may come to the conclusion that you can keep your existing job but become more creative at doing what you already do. Or maybe you may come to the realization that you can start doing some freelancing work in your spare time so you build up a customer base and experience before taking the risk of quitting your job. Or maybe you can speak to your employer and pitch your creative idea(s). 
Whatever you come up with appreciate that each part has a positive intention. Using your criteria for a rational analysis and/or checking with your subconscious mind (using your hands as vehicles) can help you sense which option is the best for you. If the conflict is deeper you should leverage the belief that there is almost always a third way. Open up to let it in. Then give it a shot. You’ll be amazed by how powerful this simple process can be and the wisdom in can yield. 

Try this process and let me know how it goes. 

For those who are more analytical and less prone to ‘willingly suspend their disbelief’ I will explain how to conduct a decision-making comparative analysis where you assess options based on how well each satisfies your set of criteria.

I have noticed an interesting trend lately. I seem to meet more and more people who, when asked the customary: ‘So what do you do?’ don’t simply answer: ‘I am a X’ (substitute X for ‘lawyer’, ‘manager’, ‘painter’, ‘salesperson’ or any other established profession). Most people seem to be doing a number of different things at once.

Sounds odd? Think I live on another planet? Just check the profiles on LinkedIn and you’ll see what I mean. Increasingly people’s LinkedIn profiles read something like: “I am a X & Y and also do a bit of A and B  and occasionally C”.

A ‘designer’ is now someone who works in “design, social media and event management and launching a crowd-funding platform startup” and a ‘therapist’ is now an “expert in alternative medicine, manager of an online distribution business, health blogger and also a musician for corporate events”. Even employees and executives in large companies may have a side gig where they take on another part-time business such as real estate, semi-professional poker players or offer some kind of professional service (un)related to what they do in their day jobs.

But this is not all, there are also others who will answer the same question differently based on who asks. So the same person may be a therapist, an online distributor, social media manager and an entrepreneur at different times of the day depending on what the person who asked does and needs.

Without going into a full sociological analysis, I think this trend is very telling of the economic and social context in which we live nowadays. Internet makes everything easier to access and faster to achieve. We can all reinvent ourselves and find a stimulating and rewarding profession if we set our mind to it. Increasingly it seems that the days of a training/job for life are becoming, well, a thing of the past . Not only this ‘for life’ label is starting to feel somewhat boring for some people but even for those who appreciate the stability of a fixed job these are getting harder to come by and not as secure as they used to be. Even getting hired in a large and stable corporation doesn’t guarantee a fixed job until it’s time to retire.  

On the other hand technology enables us to work anywhere and anytime. So people are making the most of technology and information and are reinventing themselves professionally all the time. And whilst you are it why limit yourself to just one activity when you can learn and do many things? The truth is that we all want to make some extra cash (ideally tax free). Also, acquiring basic ‘technical skills’ is getting easier (you can find an online course often quite fast and even for free). So provided the state is not in the business of regulating the access and practice of your chose new profession (such as medical doctor, lawyer, etc.) anything is within you reach.

We are constantly being stimulated to get used to multi-tasking. At work they tell us that we need to take on side projects and learn to juggle between roles and responsibilities or else. At home, where time seems to be shrinking all the time it is not uncommon to do many things at once simultaneously: eat, surf the net, watch TV, chat and answer an instant message.

Does all this multi-tasking stress you out? Is this parallel professional configuration starting to eat into our sense of professional certainty and identity?

If so consider this.

To regain a sense of grounding it may be helpful to reframe it. If you break all this down you find that it doesn’t really matter what you do or even how you are anymore. Above all we are all salespeople who need to source their clients and find ways to add value to them. Since knowledge is easier to obtain what is the tricky part is to get clients willing to part with their cash in exchange for whatever you may be able to offer them. So the key becomes finding clients and being both competent and flexible in giving them what they want. This is why people seem to be taking on more professional identities. They instinctively understand that what matters is the ability to source and service demand. The more they have to offer, the more they can leverage their skills to cross-sell the better it is. Suddenly a real-estate agent can double up as a sport psychologist and a social media manager may also be an online distributor for a multi-level marketing company. 

The exact configuration of what we do is less important than the overall ability to be creative, feel free, enjoy a sense of growth and contribution and whatever else the sum of the different things you are doing may be bringing you.

If you think this is only relevant to professionals who run their own business think again. Even in the corporate world people need to be able to display an image of competence and flexibility, willingness and ability to take on new roles (often in parallel to their official job spec) as demand comes in. If not, guess who will be on that list when the next merger, acquisition or downsizing hits (and it will sooner or later)?

So where does this leaves this growing group of multi-identity professionals? It depends. For some, those who have successfully made the transition by adapting and getting comfortable with this new multi-tasking professionalism, things are looking good. At times it may get a bit hectic but all in all it’s ok. 

For many others though it is really hard to keep smiling all the time. They clearly enjoy the feeling of freedom and creativity that this multi-tasking brings. In many ways once you get started taking on new roles adding yet another professional identity isn’t very hard and can even be fun. You kind of get used to it. After all the real skills required are already there: learning and selling something else.

So where is the problem?

Unfortunately for some this multiple professional identity can turn into a split-personality syndrome where they start feeling pulled in many directions without really knowing who they are any more.  If you are one of these multi-tasking pros you know what I am talking about. It’s stressing having to check 3 or 4 different email accounts, feed content to a number of social media networks and be quick in finding the right business card amongst the 3 or 4 in your wallet.  

Eventually some may start to desire a return to the good old “I am a X (and nothing else thank you very much)” scenario. Just one thing at a time: nice and easy.

So if you are feeling the pain of living in this multiple identity paradigm how do you go about it?

First, take a step back and find out exactly what is frustrating you. As people tend to enjoy what delivers their desired outcomes chances are that the issue is not the split-personality but rather the lack of proportional results given the amount of time and effort put in. This is the most likely scenario since one of the main reasons we do take up other activities because just the one may not be fulfilling at all levels and especially financially. 

In other words, before you jump to the conclusion that you are simply uncomfortable with doing too many things at once, you may first want to imagine what it would feel like if you could be doing these two, three or more activities and getting satisfying results from them all. Does this change your state of mind? If so you may want to review the issue and reframe it as a management problem. In other words what could you do more or differently to get the results you want? Are you getting your priorities right? Is your time management efficient? Are you leveraging the right resources? Can you get some help? Can you automate tasks?

On the odd chance that you are getting the results you want but still feel frustrated then your issue is even simpler to resolve. Simply prioritize and delegate or drop one or more activities and only focus really feels right for you. Typically your best seller may be the right candidate to focus on as you people tend to enjoy more what they are good at.

Once you have taken the steps above, and only then, you may want to consider a deeper assessment of how each activity and professional identity is aligned to your core values and basic human needs.

Some activities may be generating some frustration because although they align well with some of your values they may not deliver others aspects that are also important to you. Example you may feel that activity X allows you to satisfy your need for helping others but doesn’t make you feel that creative any longer. If creativity is a core value for you then it is clear that this activity may be losing appeal to you. In certain, more extreme, cases this misalignment  can go all the way towards generating an internal conflict. This happens when you feel that a certain activity is bringing you something you value whilst at the same time bringing something you dislike. As an example think of a salesperson who loves what they do as they get a thrill from closing deals but knows that what they are selling isn’t really as good as it is claimed to be. This can generate an internal conflict where achievement is in conflict with another important value: integrity. Ideally this person would recognize this and come up with a way to design an integrity-based selling approach. With a bit of creativity, resilience and passion almost anything can be achieved but, as we have seen in previous posts, not always is this possible. In these cases it may be best to move on to something else where the two values may coexist and even enhance each other.

However there is another crucial question to ask before you make a significant decision such as dropping one of the things you do. You need to go back to your six fundamental human needs and be fully conscious of how much, in particular, you value stability over variety. As I have explained in a previous post we all share six fundamental human needs and although all are important for us we tend to favor one or two. 

When dealing with the challenge of being many things at once we need to be honest with ourselves and understand the relative weight that the need for stability and variety have for us. If we need stability over variety it is likely that at some point this multi-tasking may start to take its toll as we go back to what is in essence a conflict: the creative part is satisfied but the stability-seeking one is not. As mentioned earlier it is often possible to reconcile dissonant parts.

 In the next post I shall explain how to do that.

As usual: stay tuned and get in touch if you need any help to make sense of this in the context of your current challenges and objectives.

What do you do when everything seems to fail and the challenge appears insurmountable?

Most people tend to opt for either quitting or trying even harder. This a basic psychological reaction that is known as “fight or fly”. All animals are controlled by this instinctive reaction. When facing adversity they either fight on or quit. Does this sound familiar? Look at any two dogs in a confrontation or watch a wildlife documentary and it will soon become obvious that either they engage in a fight or one of the two opponents will graciously leave the scene.

Now let me try to step out of the animal world and back into our everyday challenges of humans. Let’s say that you feel you are not going anywhere with a job, a project or a relationship. Sounds familiar? Most people will stubbornly hang on until they recognise that they are facing a wall and need to do something about it as opposed to just sit there in the shadow of the wall. If and when they resolve to take action they will naturally go for one of the two standard options above. In other words they will either try to tear down the wall or walk away from it. 

For those who decide to quit it’s quite easy at first as the decision is totally in their hands and even feels good to simply step away. Doing so feels good because the weight of the challenge and the potential failure is lifted off their shoulders, but  the consequences may be more troubling (no income, no partner, loss of time or resources invested up that point, etc.). On the other side you have those who decide to stubbornly keep banging their head against the wall until something cracks. I am afraid to report that 99% of times bricks are harder than skulls.

So what’s one to do?

In my coaching practice with clients from all walks of life I have witnessed one common and encouraging fact:  there is always a whole set of intermediate solutions that should be considered before simply giving in to the instinct of going one way or the other. This may sound obvious but the key point, as I often repeat in workshops, articles and sessions, is that if you are not getting ther results you want i.e. if you are not breaking through the wall, continuing to stubbornly do more of the same is unlikely to yield different outcomes. The key is to look at things from a different perspective.  This means first and foremost to stop looking at the wall through the lenses of the ‘fight or fly’ dichotomy.

How about thinking creatively of ways that you can reconfigure the situation? Maybe there are other ways to get over or under the wall. Maybe the wall isn’t there and you are being fooled by the illusion that displays a wall where in reality there is nothing more than a minor obstacle. If it indeed it is wall chances are that if you only look it at from another angle you will realise that there is a door hidden somewhere. And doors require keys as opposed to stubborn force to be opened.

I have personally assisted many clients of mine who in the face of adversity and after having slammed as hard as they could in their wall without managing to break it felt like the only option was to quit, to walk away. I am pleased to report that these cases show that it’s almost always possible to find the door and go through. To do so you need to try another perspective see things from a different angle by decontstructing the situation and reconfiguring it in ways that are more aligned to your values and criteria.

A insightful example is that of an entrepreneur who tried really hard to get his idea off the ground but after much time and energy was still unable to secure and manage the right support ended up being the one taking off as he actually quit his project almost entirely, leaving it in a state of hybernation during many months until he decided to give another shot. However instead of taking a few steps and slamming again into the wall as he had done he decided to reassess the characteristics of the wall and discovered quite quickly that there was indeed a door. The wall was in fact there, as it is often the case, because there was a huge conflict between his values and ways of working and how things had been set up. This particular individual was very keen on maintaining speed and simplicity in his ways of working and for a variety of reason he allowed himself to be sucked in a vortex of complexity and slow pace movement that nearly had him quit for good. By reassessing the situation based on theses insights he was able to reconfigure the way in which he was approaching and working on his project. This shift of perspective allowed him to find and walk through the hidden door in the wall.

What’s behind the wall is an entirely different story and it also holds challenges and other barriers but the point is that this entrepreneur will always remember the lesson learned: gain perspective, find meaning and reconfigure things so that they are more aligned to your personal style and strengths. In most cases it is possible to do this. In all cases it is a must that you at least give it a shot. Whatever you do don’t just sit there in the shadow of the wall…

In the last post I have introduced the concept of belief system and have explained why it matters and where it comes from.

Now it’s time to tackle those beliefs that are limiting you and experimenting trading them up for more empowering ones.

There are many ways to do this and some use encantations which is an old and tested technique of writing down your limiting beliefs and crossing them out before writing a more empowering one that you then read out loud and with conviction many times over and over again. This works but it always felt a bit innatural to me, surely because I have a belief somewhere about reading things out loud J

I prefer a more structured approach that has 6 steps.

1.       Focus on an objective

2.       Assess your beliefs

3.       Challenge the limiting beliefs

4.       Strengthen the new beliefs

5.       Visualise

6.       Step up to act as a role model

Step 1. Focus on an objective

Although you could assess your beliefs in general it tends to be easier and more practical to do so in relation to a specific objectiv or situation you are facing. As an example, you may need to give a presentation and you want to perform well by influencing people and leading them to take action like buying something from you. Now that you know what is your desired outcome you can move to step 2.

Step 2. Assess your beliefs

With regards to your desired outcome write down what are your beliefs. Don’t get too technical here, treat any thought that comes to mind as a belief. Don’t be judgemental simply list them down and notice how some are more helpful and other less so. In other words some are empowering and others are limiting. In the context of the example above you could find that you hold limiting beliefs like: “I am not good at speaking in public” or “I have never persuaded anybody” or “I only like what is familiar to me” or “I can’t speak to someone I don’t know”. There may be also some empowering ones like: “In the end, not sure how or why, things always seem to work out”, “I have friends and resources that I can access to help me” or “I am funny”.

Step 3. Challenging your limiting beliefs

Now that you have a list of specific limiting beliefs you are ready to take them on. To do so you can use a very familiar process that you do all the time but in the unhelpful way. Think of any situation or objective that you don’t feel to secure about. Chances are that you will think something like: “What if it doesn't go well?” or “What if I fall in front of everybody?” This ‘What if’ thought process is indeed very powerful but it tends to be used in a negative way. How about using it to your advantage?

Take one of the limiting beliefs you have identified above and use the ‘What if’ process in a helpful way. Here is how I would apply it to one of the limiting beliefs from above: “What if I am better at speaking in public than I think?”  or “What if I am actually quite good at connecting with people?”

All we are doing here is to, literally, start questioning beliefs that we take for granted. In so doing we open up to a other possibilities. Doing this alone starts to weaken your limiting beliefs and deconstructs your belief system but what we are after is not just for your current belief system to unravel. We want to build a more helpful and empowering belief system from the ashes of the limiting one. To do so let’s move on to steps 4 to 6.

Step 4. Strengthen the new beliefs

Now that you have embryos of empowering beliefs it is time to stregthen them so that they can support you and carry you forward. To do so take the output of step 3 and add a ‘because…’ at the end of each ‘What if…’ statement. To increase the sense of certainty remove the initial ‘What if’ bit.

As an example let’s take “What if I am actually quite good at connecting with people?” This would therefore become “I am actually quite good at connecting with people because I am a great listener ”. Or “I am better at speaking in public than I think because I take time and care to prepare well my speech”.

Notice that you are not simply making stuff up, this process is designed to help you think of and uncover hidden abilities or characteristics. To put things in perspective consider that nobody is perfect. Even those who think they are good at speaking in public tend to take less time to prepare their speeches and are less used to face situations where a speech goes badly. They simply are not used to that. That is good in one way and bad in another because they tend to go on automatic pilot and if they hit a turbulence that can really take them by surprise . Those who consider themselves great at connecting with others tend to speak more and listen less. In other words there is always scope to question everything and leverage the findings to improve our performance.

Go through all the beliefs and replace or enhance as many as you can. Don’t spare time or energy on this. Manufacture what you need to be more successful.

Take the resulting empowering beliefs, write them down on slips of paper or post-it notes and bring them close to your chest one by one. Read the out loud and with conviction as you do so. Feel how they change your character, how they shape your new sense of self, how they make you feel you more confident and stronger as you take in the strength of these new beliefs and drop the old ones (for added impact take the original list with the limiting beliefs, tear up the paper and through them behind you).

Step 5. Visualise

You now have the ingredients to start creating your new reality. Take the empowering beliefs from above to imagine yourself in the future as you take on your step 1 challenge or objective equipped with this new set of beliefs. Visualise how you will look, sound and feel differently. See yourself like the main character in a film called “<Your name> achieving/overcoming <your objective/challenge>”.  Be creative here, go wild, make it vivid and as real as you can. Enjoy the feeling.

Step 6. Step up

And now, for the grand finale with added drama and an even stronger impact consider this bonus step.

Imagine what it would be like to take on your step 1 challenge or objective with this new set of empowering beliefs in front of someone you care deeply about and for whom you want to set an example of excellence as a mentor.

For those of you with kids, think that your son or daughter or nephew is looking at you as you deal with this situation. This will generate and allow you to access extra inner strength to deal with whatever you are facing. If you don’t have kids think of someone you care for or admire that you want to impress. How would yo behave if this person were there looking at you?

Powerful perspective isn’t it?

Try it now and enjoy that sense of being limitless.

Now go get whatever step 1 is about. It’s yours and you can make it happen. Believe it. You can.

Please note that as usual my role is to empower you  as I have a genuine belief that everyone has a greater potential than what they are currently accessing. However I am not for pushing people to have unrealistic thoughts or beliefs. Thinking that you can take on the business world and become a world tycoon may be right or wrong for you. This belief can be empowering if leveraged well but it can also become a source of frustration if you lack the willingness, resources or abilities to do what you must to get what you want. Nothing is impossible but remember that some objective are better suited to you than others. Leverage your potential but make sure to be wise about what you choose and how you deal with the realization  that you chose the wrong mission if you ever come to that. See one of my previous posts on this as I offer practical strategies to deal with this important and tricky aspect of personal development.      

Now, as always, I am here to support you. If you need help to audit and change your limiting beliefs get in touch and I will guide you through this proven process to get you to believe and achieve new heights. Thanks for your trust and interest so far.

Now that you have learned about your basic human psycological needs, your values/ criteria and you rules, you are well positioned to take on the next piece of the puzzle that defines why you do what you do and shy away from certain things: your belief system.

What is a belief system and why does it matter?

A belief system is a set of beliefs or thoughts that you hold to be true (often despite the evidence) and that shape and give meaning to your experiences. These beliefs can be limiting or empowering, and as such they will hold you back or propel you forward as you deal with challenges and opportunities in your life.

We speak of a system because they tend to support one another and end up creating an integrated system of beliefs and thoughts that over time can lead you to lose the ability to see things from a different perspective.

As an example, think of what happens in you when an idea of yours is shot down by someone you know well or not at all. This could be at work or at home or with friends. Some people react by shutting down as they give in to the belief that their ideas are never good, that nobody cares for their input and that they just aren’t worth much. Faced with exactly the same situation others react by leveraging their belief that every feedback, good or bad, is a learning opportunity. This pushes them to review their idea, take in the feedback and come up with a new version of the original idea that they are happy to sumbit again.

In the first case, the limiting belief triggers feelings of inadequacy, fear and insecurity that not only lead to pulling back at the time but will also influence character and attitude over time.

In the second instance, the empowering belief leads to trying again from a different angle and boosts resilience, confidence and attitude that can and will be leveraged over and over again in the future.

So where to beliefs come from?

In essence, they are the product of a complex set of factors including innate character traits and above all early experience and education during the formative years. In this sense beliefs are learned and embedded in your way of thinking and being as a mechanism to protect you from negative consequences.  You may, for instance, have been severely punished as a child for venturing away from your garden or block and getting lost. As such you may have developed a belief that taking on risks will always lead to bad outcomes.

But don’t think that this means that if your beliefs tend to be of the limiting sort you are doomed. It’s never too late to change even though you are no longer a child. The good news is that as an adult you are fully in charge and control of your personal development process and you can decide to assess and change your beliefs to make them more empowering and less limiting.

Although there are many limiting beliefs they all stem from three basic inner fears that are common to all human beings to a greater or lesser degree. These are:

1.       The fear to fail

2.       The fear of not being worthy

3.       The fear not to be liked/loved

If you think carefully and honestly about this you will find that whatever limiting beliefs you may have they can all be mapped back to one or more of these three fears above.

The reason why people typically don’t like to speak in public or dance is that they are afraid to fail and make a fool of themselves. Some believe that they aren’t worth much and therefore they don’t take on challenges, or do so only halfheartedly, because they don’t truly believe that they could ever deserve to make it. Finally others are so afraid about what people will think of them if they decide to challenge the status quo and try something new, that they get used to stay put in their current condition. They do so in the belief that it is the only way to preserve that little connection and love that they have with their peers.

Any of this sounds familiar? 

In the next post I will explain how to go change all this.

As usual stay tuned.

Until then remember that you give meaning to what happens around you, not the opposite.

In the previous post we have learned about the importance of the 6 basic human needs as well values/criteria and how the two are connected. Now we will focus on your rules as these are crucial to understand what needs to happen for you to feel satisfied.

Let’s get practical, shall we?

Clarity about your rules allow you to turn all of what we have seen so far (the importance of needs and values/criteria) into something practical that you can use on a daily basis. Rules are crucial as they provide clarity so that you know what has to occur for a certain criteria to be realized and therefore that one or more needs (to which these criteria are linked) are being met.

We all have rules, conscious or not and these have a huge impact on our quality of life. After all, the same need or value/criterion will be met differently by different people. Some just happen to be fully aware of their rules and have designed them or tweaked them so as to make them helpful as opposed to painful in the management of their lives.

So what exactly is a rule? As an example, if you value creativity as a criterion for assessing a job opportunity vs. your current situation, you may want to define explicitly what should happen for you to consider a job to be truly creative. By the way, this is also called an evidence procedure. It’s about listing a clear set of evidence and how they are linked together.

 For a coaching client of mine who works in the design industry his rule for feeling creative is to know that he has autonomy to design new stuff and get recognition via winning awards or getting media coverage at least once every three months.

Now that’s a very practical rule that describes in measurable terms if he is managing to be creative or not. The rule may be ambitious for some and very modest for others. It is important to define rules that are just right for you.

As a tip I would recommend to have rules which are challenging but not impossible to satisfy as these will stretch you without breaking you or you could end up having a criterion that is next to impossible to satisfy. This would produce pain and frustration as you conclude that you are not living in accordance to what matters to you i.e. your criteria and in turn your basic needs (creativity would probably  be linked to variety, significance, connection, growth and even contribution). To put it more bluntly you should create easy to follow rules to meet your needs and value/criteria. This is your game, so design the rules that make it easy, but not boring, for you to win!

By the way, notice that if you are clear about your rules you are in a much better position to help others understand them. At work, at home, with friends making your rules clear can really improve your relationships. If you and others understand what you expect to happen to feel fulfilled you can really create the conditions for things to work smoothly and for empowering balanced cooperation to take place.

So here we have a chain that starts with needs that are articulated in terms of values/criteria and that are made real by rules.

Whatever you are facing you can deal with it first by assessing to what extent this challenge is aligned to what matters to you and ability to meet your rules.

Now if and when you are taking on a challenge you will do so in full consciousness that this is not just another project but rather a way to fulfill your needs and values and therefore to realize your identity.

If you are at a point where you need to decide if it’s time to move on or not, you will be able to take the decision and extract the learning at a deeper and more conscious level. You will be able to take in constructively what really matters and use it as a springboard for future action rather than a limiting experience that will hold you back. Where learning is based on alignment with your needs and value there is growth and motivation and thus a brighter outlook.

With this knowledge and insight you have a compass with which you can navigate your own journey. It may be tough at times, you may encounter barriers but that’s what makes the journey so exciting and worth taking. March on traveler of change!     

As we have seen in the last post the first step to take on or move on is to make sure that you are aware of what really matters to you. 

Without a clear understanding of what you need and value any new project/task that you take on or that you are deciding to let go you are unlikely make the most of the experience.

It doesn't matter if you are at the start or at the end of a journey. It doesn't even matter if you are successful or not. What matters is that you have clarity about your needs and values. With this understanding in place you can fully access your potential and strength to deal with what is needed to succeed or to deal with failure constructively so that you can take the learning into your next challenges.

So how do you go about understanding your own needs and values? 

Needs and values are related. But what are needs and values? Needs are basic conditions that must be met to be fulfilled and are universal to all human beings. Values are more specific to each person and are about what they value in a certain sphere of life (professional, relational, health, leisure, etc.).

According to Human Needs psychology there are 6 basic human needs.
The need for Certainty (security, comfort, stability) which is balanced and challenged by the need for Variety (novelty, stimulus,  adventure).  The third is about need for Significance (feeling special and recognized) which is paired up with the need for Love/Connection (going beyond oneself and reaching out to others). Finally the last two goals are about Growth (focus on our personal development) and Contribution (focus on giving to others). 

We all need to satisfy these 6 fundamental needs if we are to experience fulfillment but typically we tend to focus and favor two out of the six. Those on which we focus and what we do to meet them shape what we do and what we don’t do. They influence our level of commitment and drive as well as limiting patterns and bad habits. In other words even negative or destructive behaviors have a positive intent as they are about trying to satisfy a certain need. As an example over-eating gives the illusion of satisfying needs of certainty and connection with one self. Aggressive behaviors are about generating the illusion of significance. When a behavior satisfies two or more needs intensely (say 8 or above on a 0 – 10 scale) we start to get addicted to it. 

These are well known emotional patterns but most people indulging in destructive behaviors don’t quite realize it. If they truly did they would open up to the possibility of finding empowering alternatives to satisfy those needs. There is a lot more to be said about this but this is not quite the aim of this post. Instead we will move to the next concept. 

At the next level up in this process of self-understanding we find personal values. They are the answer to a simple yet powerful question: What do I value in this aspect of my life?

Example: what do I value in my professional sphere? 
In my experience the word ‘value’ is quite loaded and for most people this word brings up concepts such as honor, religion, family or country. In the context of coaching and change values are much more practical and simply define the key criteria that you use (consciously or not) to assess opportunities and situations in different areas in your life. This is why the word criteria may be more helpful but the two can be used as synonyms.
Examples of random values/criteria linked to the professional area are: freedom, creativity, independence, recognition, collaboration, status, trust, routine, stretching targets, etc.

Whereas the needs are universal, the criteria are inherently personal. The best way to discover your values or criteria is to think and remember what you value(d) more in a certain area of your life. For example you may remember with joy a job where you felt you were being given latitude to be autonomous and creative.  This tells you that you probably value these things.

The trick, when defining your list of criteria, is not to be confined to your past experience but rather to open up to a full spectrum of possibilities. A brainstorming process where you list ten, twenty or even thirty values may be a good way to break through of limits imposed by what has been, instead of empowered by what could have been.

Once you have a long list of candidate criteria you may want to prioritize them so that you can come up with the top 5 or so. These criteria are a very useful tool for decision making because any option that you have can now be ranked in terms of how well it meets your criteria. If for whatever reason the options available aren’t particularly good then you may want to take a stab at considering and finding other options. 

These key criteria will always be linked to your top human needs. This is so because everything we do (or don’t), everything we want is conditioned by the drive to satisfy the needs. Take a look at your criteria to see if and how they support your needs, especially the top two or three of the six.

Now that you have a clearer understanding of your key needs and criteria and how they are connected you are in a much stronger position to take on or move on.  

In the next post I shall explain the concept of rules and how they are linked to values/criteria before pulling needs, values/criteria and rules together and how they can be used for deciding what to do about your project and challenges.

Stay tuned!