Redbird Coaching

Posts Tagged ‘relax’

Choose one or more of these tried and tested boosters and watch your confidence quotient soar!

1. Write yourself a winner’s script
If you go into a challenging situation with a little voice at the back of your mind saying “you KNOW you’re going to mess up; you’re USELESS at this; you ALWAYS get this sort of thing WRONG”, the chances are you will mess up, be useless and get it wrong. You can change this quite simply by writing yourself a winner’s script: it’s worth writing it down once you’ve clarified it for yourself. It might be something like this: “This may be difficult, but I KNOW I CAN COPE. I’ve dealt with this sort of thing before so I KNOW WHAT TO DO. I will be CALM. I will ENJOY turning this into A SUCCESS.” This is a “vanilla” version of a winner’s script, so change it to suit you and your circumstances. The most effective winner’s script is the one you write for yourself. You may need to create a different script for different situations; sometimes you’ll need to repeat it often, other times one or two run-throughs will be enough
2. See yourself successful
This is another version of writing yourself a winner’s script and it works really well for people who prefer to think in pictures, rather than words. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to relax, then start putting together a picture of yourself at your most successful. This might be a memory, or it might be a future projection, but either way, you will want to create the most vivid picture possible. Give your picture bright, clear colours; see the expression on your own face; check out your winner’s posture; give your winning self a superb setting; look at the accessories that you associate with winning – this varies so much from person to person, but might include a fabulous office, a big car, a personal assistant…it’s entirely up to you. Once you’ve created your mind picture, give it a caption: again, it’s up to you, but some suggestions are “The Winner!” “Well done me” “My success story” “Portrait of success”….you will come up with your own ideas, and they will be eminently memorable for you personally. Now practice conjuring up this vision: call it up using the caption you’ve given it, then examine the picture in deep detail, paying special attention to yourself, the winner.

3. Analyse a winner
Think of someone you know who always seems confident and self-assured. Think of that person dealing with your situation. How would they speak? How would they stand? What would they wear? What would they expect to happen? How would they prepare? Once you’ve analysed your winner’s methods, steal them! If they speak slowly and clearly, could you do the same? If they stand tall with good posture, could you do that; will you wear something that is comfortable and appropriate, have a positive expectation, be well prepared? Your particular winner may have different methods that better suit the situation you’re looking at, but the idea is the same, whoever you picture.

4. Remember you’re a winner
This is an incredibly powerful way of using your inner resources to help you through any difficulty. Think back to a time when you felt successful and completely confident: this might be in a work situation, or something related to your life outside work; it could be yesterday, last week, last year or two decades ago. The feeling may have lasted two minutes or two years. It doesn’t really matter when or where it was or how long it lasted, what matters is how you felt. Think back to that feeling; concentrate on the way you felt at that time. Spend a few minutes thinking about it, how you felt, how you carried yourself, how you looked, what you said or did while you felt so confident. Why were you so successful and confident? What had you achieved that gave you that feeling? What were you doing? How did other people respond to you? Really see yourself as you were then, when you felt successful and confident. Get a very clear picture in your mind. Now imagine that successful, confident you dealing with whatever is making you feel anxious or doubtful. How does the confident you look? How does the confident you speak? What does the confident you say?

5. Be kind to yourself
Imagine you are able to clone yourself. Picture a you2 standing right in front of you. Now tell that you2 how great you are; praise your you2’s achievements and efforts; tell your you2 you have faith in them; you believe in your you2 and you know they will succeed. Finally, give your you2 a big hug and concentrate on letting him or her know how much you care about them and believe in them. Some people find this works better for them if they picture themselves as a child; others find they respond better to an adult clone – it’s up to you. Give it a try.

6. Write a new CV
This is a very effective way of stocktaking your own skills and achievements and boosting your self-esteem on confidence. If you can share this with a friend, so much the better – you create your friend’s CV, then swap roles. We tend not to blow our own trumpets, so sometimes it’s useful to have another person describe your strengths! Imagine you are creating a CV to give to an employer from another planet: this employer is not only interested in your working skills and experience, he wants to know everything about you. Make five lists: i. work achievements ii. personal achievements iii. natural abilities iv. challenges I’ve met v. my strong points. Remember to include things you might take for granted, like driving, cooking, managing a household, diy, parenting skills… your friend may add achievements to your list you haven’t even considered. If it helps, compare what you were able to do when you were, say, 16, with what you can do now. You’ll be amazed at how long that list is! Look at your whole life in terms of the things you have achieved and how much you do well, and you’ll start to see how many skills and talents you really have – so give yourself a pat on the back and hold your head high.

It’s not barmy, it’s good sense. You may have dozens of negative internal scripts running in your head right now and talking to yourself is a great way of neutralizing them. They’ve been cobbled together by your subconscious and your survival instinct from warnings like “careful,” “don’t fall”, or “mind, that’s hot.  Don’t believe it? Try thinking about something you’ve always wanted to do but never got round to: what’s stopping you? Listen hard and you’ll hear that negative script, on a loop, saying something like “what? you? no chance!”

Step one / examine the evidence

Give yourself time to start hearing the negative talk; enlist the help of a pal – you listen for hers, she listens for yours. You’ll be surprised by how many things these negative scripts warn you against and stop you from doing. Write them down in a list.

 Step two / now destroy the evidence…

Take each negative script in turn: cross it out – very therapeutic – then write next to it the exact opposite of what it said. So if your internal script said “I’m no runner”, write “I’m a great runner”. At this point you don’t have to believe it, you just have to write it down.

Step three / and start believing

Read your new positive scripts over to yourself and starting with just one, repeat it out loud at least once a day and in your head at least 10 times a day. If you can say it out loud lots of times so much the better. Just keep repeating it and you’ll find you do start to believe it. It works.

For more details on how to banish limiting beliefs
for good, call me on 07986 982 695 or mail
hazel@redbirdcoaching.co.uk

Confidence keynotes

Those negative scripts are part of a whole system of negatives we all have called limiting beliefs: they’re often completely unfounded, based on nothing more than something someone carelessly said to you years ago, perhaps warning you of a potential danger or criticising you to make them feel stronger. They’ve probably never thought about it since then, but your subconscious joined forces with your survival instinct and turned the negative stuff into a self-fulfilling prophecy. You think you’re hopeless at maths, you say it, your internal script repeats it and, surprise, surprise, you go into meltdown if you have to calculate anything more complicated than 1+1! Good to know, then, that you can talk yourself out of these self-fulfilling prophecies, just as your subconscious talked you into them.

Short, sharp emergency measures

1.
Take three x three deep breaths.
You’re nervous, your breathing is probably faster than normal and shallower than normal. You can calm yourself down in a matter of seconds by doing the three by three:
i Think of a clear blue sky. Concentrate on the vivid blue. No clouds, just a clear beautiful blue. Close your eyes if you can. 
ii Take a good deep breath – breathe in through your nose to a count of one-elephant-two-elephant-three-elephant-four-elephant-five, out through your mouth to a count of one-elephant-two-elephant-three-elephant-four-elephant-five. Do this three times.
iii Repeat step two twice more, so you’ve taken nine deep breaths in all, which will take you no longer than two minutes
Notice how much calmer you feel. Take one more deep breath for luck. Lift your chin and smile.

2
Take a time out
If it’s feasible, leave the room, or move away from whatever is making you panic. You can say something simple, like “I need a minute here” or “excuse me, I’d like a breath of air”. If you can’t physically remove yourself, give yourself a mental breather. Say something like “I need to think about this” or “Let’s take this slowly” or “Please don’t  rush me”
Just speaking will bring your panic level down a notch; the fact that you’re taking a measure of control will help too.
Once you’ve bought yourself some time, take three deep breaths, then six more if you can. Now you’re ready to face the music. 
3
Stretch
If you have room, and it’s appropriate:
i Raise your arms up high over your head, reach up a little higher than you think you can. 
ii Step back on one foot then lean forward, feel the stretch down the back of the back leg. Change legs and repeat
ii Put your right arm up, bend at the elbow, then reach as far down your back with your right hand as you can. Push gently with the other hand. Repeat on the other side.
Naturally, you’ll only be able to do these stretches if there’s time and a suitable place. If time’s tight and you can’t find somewhere private, try this:

4
Stand tall
Imagine there is a piece of string attached to the top of your head and someone is pulling on it. Feel your spine elongate, your chin lift and your shoulders drop down. You’ll want to take a breath too, so make it a deep one!

The Golden Room

A perfect place of peace and tranquillity you can visit whenever you like

Visualisation is a truly powerful technique and this guided example is an excellent way of practising it.

When the shark bites, when the bee stings, when you’re feeling sad, simply transport yourself to a beautiful place where everything is exactly as you want it to be.
It’s all in the mind, of course, but this exercise in visualisation is great on two levels: it gets you into the swing of visualisation and, the bonus, it gives you a personal retreat to which you can retire if ever the world becomes just a bit to hard to bear.

There are many variations on this theme – I’ve heard a version that American Indians use, one that’s popular with hypnotherapists, and yet another that was passed on to me by a friend who’d heard it at her church.
This is my own version, and it works fantastically well for me. Give it a try, and if you find you need to add details or change the ambiance, fine – it will work better for you if you have created it for yourself.
Imagine a cube, about 10ftx10ftx10ft. This cube is made up of  bright, golden light which gives off a gentle warmth. This cube is the Golden Room.
Give yourself a minute or so to really picture this room: it’s bounded only by light, and everything you place in it is bathed in beautiful clear rays of energy.
Soft as thistledown
My Golden Room contains a sofa with comfortable cushions that are soft as thistledown; there is a lavender aroma; I can occasionally hear windchimes in the distance, and I often hear the shushing sound of the sea lapping against a sandy beach.
You will choose your own details: your Golden Room may contain only clouds or a simple table and chair; there may be no aroma, or it may be the delicious fragrance of an apple pie cooking in the oven in your mum’s kitchen; your Golden Room may have beautiful pictures or sculptures or loads of books…it’s entirely up to you.
Fill your Golden Room with things that bring you pleasure and comfort. Because this Golden Room is entirely yours, you can have fountains of liquid silver or baby deer, tame tigers or gleaming cars – there’s no limit to what you can have, except that whatever you choose must bring you pleasure and comfort.
Your Golden Room may be minimalist or you might go for Art Deco or Goth or something that only you could describe. Great! Enjoy the experience of creating this light-filled space exactly as you want it to be.
This Golden Room, once you’ve described it clearly and fully to yourself, is where you will go when you need to relax, or take time out, or move away from a stressful situation.
Calm and peace
The bright golden light in your Golden Room will fill you with a feeling of calm and peace; your energy reserves will be topped up by it; aches and pains will be relieved by it; tears that you take to the Golden Room evaporate in the gentle warmth of the light, leaving you feeling refreshed and revived. Sadness seeps away in the Golden Room; anger dissipates and tension simply disappears.
Now see yourself in the Golden Room. Notice how relaxed and calm you are. Notice how happy you feel; acknowledge that while you’re there, nothing troubles you. Realise how clearly you are able to think. Feel how much the light refreshes you, re-energises you and gives you a sense of comfort and security.
Once you have a Golden Room of your own, you can go there whenever you need a boost of energy or confidence, or respite from stress. It’s a great place to go when you’re getting ready to sleep, because you’ll relax straight away. It’s also a great place to go when you feel unhappy or sad, or when your temper’s getting the better of you. If you’re feeling nervous a few seconds in the Golden Room can calm you down; the train journey home can be a little piece of heaven if you concentrate on spending your time in the Golden Room.
You can visit as often as you like and stay as long as you like, and you can add or subtract from what’s inside it. The only thing that’s constant is the bright golden light and beyond that, the only limit is your own imagination.
Enjoy!