How to handle hurtful comments and verbal attacks

In this article I will outline ways to help you deal with criticism, particularly unpleasant, unfair and hurtful comments and remarks such as “Your clothes are silly”, “you are a teacher’s/boss’s pet”, “You smell/are a dwarf/a bastard” etc and including racial discrimination.

What hurtful comments really are

When a negative statement is directed at you using words like “you/your”, you naturally assume it is about you. The pure fact that someone uttered something negative about you, can feel like an attack or a betrayal – regardless of the content. You might feel any emotion from rage, anger, hurt, disappointment to sadness. Even the most absurd and unexpected  content of the statement, could start you wondering whether there might be some truth in the statement.

Your focus is naturally on your hurt feelings and the content of the statement.  Stop.

Refocus your thoughts on the person delivering the statement. Ask yourself why he/she said what they said, why they were so negative, what could be the trigger ? A bad day ? A lost fight with somebody else ? Fear ? Envy ? Jealousy? Uncertainty ?.  The truth is, people are way to pre-occupied with themselves to think about somebody else in any depth. As much as you would like people to really understand you, they rarely spend the energy. Any negative statement therefore always says more about the person delivering the statement than about the person the statement is directed at !  It’s NOT about YOU !

The most common reasons for people hurting others with their comments are:

1. Fear of the unknown / prejudice
2. Seeing something they reject about themselves in you/your actions
3. Jealousy/Envy
4. Seemingly deliberate intention to hurt/exert power (will be dealt with in bullying chapter)

A negative statement about you, could therefore inform you about what the other person is scared about. Most discrimination and racial comments are being made because people are unfamiliar with differently looking  or behaving people and the unpredictability scares them. As they are too scared and too self-absorbed to truly get to know people who are different, they rather make things up about them and then wait for their behaviour to confirm their prejudices, while ignoring all counter-evidence (as irrelevant or accidental).

A negative statement about you could also inform you about something the other person doesn’t like about themselves. If you hear a very hateful “you’re so incredibly lazy” statement thrown at you. Chances are high, that the other person would love to be more lazy but doesn’t allow him/herself to be so.

Jealousy or envy play another major role in motivating people to make hurtful statements. Let’s take the example of “teacher’s pet” or “study geek”, to hurt an A student. Interestingly, these comments are never being made by A students but always by students with worse grades (at least in that particular subject/test). You can’t help but sense that there is a good deal of envy in the statement.

Although people who make negative comments can appear strong, in reality they are weak and have low self-esteem. To hide it, they put on a “tough” face. Always remember: Strong people with high self-esteem don’t put others down !

Keep this in mind ! Look for the motivation behind the hurtful statement before you let it drag you down. As a metaphor, imagine an angry 2-year-old throwing a tantrum in the playground aimlessly throwing mud around or even targeting you in particular because you have the toy it wants.

And how can I learn to not let hurtful comments affect me ?

When a negative statements is directed at you, your natural tendency is to take it personal. You can feel rejected or at least that a part of you is being rejected. Hurtful comments from others have the biggest impact if you rely on other’s opinion for your self-worth (rather than knowing that it can only come from the inside).

We often assume (wrongly) that somebody who dares to launch such hurtful statements must be stronger than us, when in reality they are themselves struggling, learning, growing up and trying to make sense of their feelings. Don’t let words intimidate you.

Here are a few ideas on how to practise the “It’s not about me” mantra:

1. Notice when somebody says something hurtful about somebody else (not you). Try to figure out what the motivation for that comment could have been. What does it tell you about the person making the statement ? Make up a few explanatory stories. It is often easier to see reasons if it doesn’t involve you directly. By doing that you gain practise that you will draw from when a negative statement is targeted at you.
2. Before you take anything personal, find at least 3 explanations for the statement that have nothing to do with you but highlight potential issues in the other persons life such as “wow, she might have had a bad argument with her Dad again this morning”, or “maybe she is falling ill and feeling lousy”, or “maybe she feels a lot of pressure from her controlling and demanding mother”.
3. Remind yourself that, deep inside, the other person must be feeling weak with low self-esteem.

If you can, try and feel compassion. If you want to go even further, try and communicate your compassion and offer your help (but careful: this help isn’t always welcome).

In a nutshell:  Don’t take it personal. Know that none of the content is truly about you. Nothing is wrong with you. But somebody else has issues, is fearful, envious, etc. You are probably not the right person to help him/her, so walk away without it affecting you. If you can get yourself to feel compassion you have reached the high ground.

Easy ways to get rid of fear

Living with constant or regular fear is a dreadful state that drastically reduces our quality of life. The most common types of fear are a) the fear of failure and b) the fear of rejection. The fear of failure makes us totally focused on avoiding mistakes (rather than focusing on the life we want) and the fear of rejection makes us “fake” who we are in order to please others or become overly clingy and unpleasant as a friend or partner. Behind all types of fear however, is only one type of fear: the “fear that we won’t be able to handle it”.

How do I know I face this challenge ?

If you have fears on a regular or even daily basis you will certainly know. If you are fearful only on rare occasions, you might skip this challenge.

Why does it matter ? What are the benefits of tackling this challenge ?

Living without fear is a blissful state of confidence, that you can handle whatever life throws at you.  It makes you free and able to enjoy life.

Why is it a challenge to handle recurring fear ?

First of all, let me be clear that I am not talking about the type of fear that occurs occasionally when we almost had an accident or we just watched a horror movie. This type of fear vanishes after a while and doesn’t represent a challenge for most of us.

The type of fear that represents a challenge is the type that stays with us day in day out. It’s the type of fear that impacts all our decisions and actions. This type of fear is a challenge because it seems to have a grip on us and control us. We are not in control and it doesn’t go away. We feel as if we are at the mercy of our uncontrollable feelings. This fear is truly in the way of life quality.

Specific Steps to get rid of this fear

Let’s start with the fear of failure. Why would you fear failure ? Because of the repercussions on your personality. You (falsely) assume, that the failure of an action is a failure of you. You may also assume that others come to the same conclusion and so your fear of failure gets enhanced by a fear of rejection.

The fear of failure is based on a fundamentally wrong assumption (or limiting belief) that we must succeed in our first go. And it is completetly contrary to how learning and progress occurs in nature.  All learning occurs in cycles of attempt and failure or part-failure, a new refined attempt with a new part-failure until success occurs. Trying to avoid this fundamental law of life is a futile endeavour.

When you learned to walk, you didn’t just get up and walk. You fell a hundred times until you mastered the skill. You might also know the old Edison story who after 99 failures to create an electric light bulb answered to the question: “How do you cope with so much failure ?” “Failure ? What failure ? I have found 99 ways on how to not invent the light bulb”. And he learned with every failure how to change things further until he succeeded, and he did in the end.

We must replace our wrong assumption “must succeed in our first go” with the only healthy assumption that we “must fail & learn several times before we succeed”. Once we accept this as our belief, we can’t wait to get going and fail so that we can get on to success. We will have understood that there is no short-cut and that all success comes after a few failures. When you understand this, you will no longer fear failure but look forward to them and the new learning they bring. NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) has defined a useful belief : “There is no failure only feedback”. This is a different way of putting it. Indeed, every failure is nothing but information about what did not work. This is not bad news but incredibly valuable information to design a better attempt in your next go. If you learn to take all failures in life as information on how to do better, you will not only lose the fear but also fall in love with life as suddenly, anything becomes possible.

In my previous article series about Changing Limiting Beliefs – 3 Best Ways To Eliminate Them you have learned how to change beliefs successfully. If you realize now, that you want to hold another belief other than “I must succed in my first go” or similar, go back to the article and follow the process for belief change.

Useful beliefs are:

The more I fail the more I succeed

All success comes after a few failures.

There is no failure only feedback.

Failing is not only necessary but good, how else would I know how to change my approach next time.

 

Now, let’s look at the fear of rejection often connected to the fear of failure. Even if you managed to see your failures as a good thing that enables you to learn and progress, you might still worry that others don’t see things like you and judge you as a “looser”. Here is a secret: Others take their clues from you ! What I mean is that others don’t know whether your actions are what you wanted or not, but they take their judgement based on YOUR reaction. If you say, “oh no I failed completely” , they will pity you and see you as failed. If, however, you say to your failure “great result, now I know how to continue / do next time”, they will be puzzled and then admire you and see you like a strong person or winner.

You will effortlessly give the  “winner clues” when you have properly prepared for the possibility of your actions failing and genuinely are happy about the learning you will get. If you are not that advanced yet, then at least fake your satisfaction about the result and you will see others will go along with your interpretation of the situation.

Get rid of the false illusion that anybody will spend time to analyse your situation in depth. People are way to self-occupied to spend any extended calories to figure you out, they want things to be easy. They will go with the clues you give them – promise !

I like the idea of “looser” being a physical place. You are only a looser if you decide not to keep walking on from “looser” place. Most people who happen to come to “looser place”, despair in the realization. They stop here and become so disillusioned that they make no further attempt to go on. That’s what makes them a real looser not the fact that they arrived there. However, when you walk on from the looser place, you will be seen as the “phoenix from the ashes”,  the go-getter, the winner.

Here is a second point on worrying what others think about your “failure”. Who’s opinion do you care about ? Are these people worth it ? Are they on your side ? If not, why care about them.  Those who truly like you and support you will not judge or reject you for having tried and failed, they will support you to move on and succeed another time.

 

3 Free Innovative Business Ideas – Merry Christmas

Here is the third lot of free business ideas for you to grab and try out for free to start or expand your business.  Have fun with it but please note, we can’t take any responsibility for your execution of the idea.

Good luck !

P.S. Do let us know how you are getting on !

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Free Business Idea – No 1:  Coloured Sugar Cubes for Every Occasion

Why do sugar cubes have to be white ? Wouldn’t it be so much nicer to have coloured or even decorated cubes for every occasion: red and green cubes for Christmas tea or coffee for example. Taking this idea further, you could even offer flavoured sugar cubes giving your coffee or tea that extra kick.

This would also turn a commodity into an interesting little gift idea. Just imagine clear little bags with coloured/flavoured sugar cubes to be given as token presents when invited to afternoon tea or coffee gatherings.

Free Business Idea – No 2:  Pre-loaded I-pods (and Exchange Stations So Customers can Stay Up-To-Date with the Lastest Music Playlist)

Ipods are a wonderful invention allowing us to take music wherever we go. But there is one highly annoying part of it all: the tedious uploading of music to create fresh playlists. While the process might be fun for some (younger folks), the busy older generation really doesn’t enjoy downloading music from the internet or uploading their favourite CD’s. It takes time and is anything but fun.

Why not offer pre-recorded ipods with different up-to-date music/play-lists for specific occasion such as: a) running music, b) relaxing music, c) feel good music and offer consumers to exchange their ipods for the exact same type of ipod with fresh music play lists (i.e. shuffle for shuffle, nano for nano etc) to allow them to enjoy fresh music while running, relaxing or needing a mood boost.

You could charge separately for every exchange of hard ware or start a membership scheme.

I would be your first customer ! I would seriously give a lot for buying ipod music just like I buy a CD in a store.  After all, I would never buy a CD if I had to choose the tracks myself and upload them onto my CD. The whole point is that somebody else has chosen the tracks for you and you trust the label.

Free Business Idea – No 3:  Kids’ Toy for Practising Hairdressing Skills

Children love playing around with hair, trying out hairdos and hair cuts. Unfortunately, once cut, the hair is gone and few parents are happy for children to experiment with either their own or their siblings’ hair.

So why not create a doll’s head with “never-ending hair”. Once a haircut has been cut, you can pull out more hair until the original length has been re-established ready for the next hair cut or hair do experiment. Technically, this could be achieved by using a coil full of wound-up hair at the back of/or inside the neck. The extra hair could be released via a lever or any other suitable mechanism.

By making the plastic scalp removable (and connected to the coil), you could even offer replacement scalp/hair coils in different colours and structures, extending the fun and time children with enjoy this toy.

 

My list of top 20 empowering beliefs

In my last 3 articles on the topic of beliefs I outlined their enormous power (The Secret Force Between Every Success), showed you how to figure out what’s holding you back from unlimited success (How to Reveal Your (Limiting) Beliefs) and offered you my top 3 best ways to eliminate these limiting beliefs while replacing them with empowering ones (3 Best Ways to Eliminate a Limiting Belief).

Here is my personal list of healthy and empowering beliefs I like. Feel free to pick some for yourself.

LIFE

Life is fun / exciting / interesting / amazing

Life is just a big game / big playground.

Life is full of (unforeseen) opportunities

FREEDOM/CHOICE/MOVEMENT

I can do, decide anything I want – as long as I accept the consequences.

I am in control of my life, I decide how to react to what life throws at me.

I have lots of skills and capabilities to always find a way forward.

When one door closes, another one always opens

I can always change things

Anything is possible

Things are getting better and better for me

SUCCESS

I can do it

There is no failure only valuable feedback to help me improve my next attempt

If something is not working one way, it will work another way

If I can’t solve the issue alone, I can always ask somebody

Whatever happens, I can handle it

I will make it somehow

Everyone is helping me to succeed (knowingly or not)

I am meant to succeed

MONEY

(Beyond basic needs…) Happiness does not depend on my bank account

Money cannot buy me happiness

I will always have enough to live a happy life

LOVE

To feel more loved, I can always love others more (and it will come back to me)

I don’t need the approval of others as long as I follow my heart

There is something good in everything and everyone – I just have to search for it

I am blessed with many great people and things in my life.

 

3 More Free Business Ideas

Here is the second lot of business ideas for you to grab and try out for free to start or expand your business.  Why not try one out ? Fun garantueed. However, we can’t take any responsibility for your execution of the idea.

Good luck !

P.S. Do let us know how you are getting on !

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Free Business Idea – No 1:  Tooth Art

You are familiar with nail studios and nail art. The fashion and designs for nail polish have long evolved from basic and French manicures to more elaborate designs. Why not transfer this idea to teeth ? You could start a whole new fashion getting people to colour one or several teeth in a (toothfriendly) colour, apply a (toothfriendly) sticker or have professionals create more elaborate designs – all with toothfriendly materials of course.

Making smiles (even) more interesting

Free Business Idea – No 2:  An internet portal for people searching for property

There are plenty of sites showing you properties for sale in almost every country. People searching to buy are regularly checking out new offers and whether prices have dropped to match their budget. They will not be able to spot every change, though, and miss the odd opportunity. The seller or estate agent is waiting to see whether his current ad is creating a response. This process works well for seller’s who have time.

Now imagine this. Potential buyers post their desired property specifications with their desired price (and maybe even their position: cash buyer/approved mortage/mortgage still to be arranged). Those wanting to sell, browse these listings to see whether they want to match the desired price. If they want to match it, they contact the potential buyer. To ensure the potential buyers’s intention is genuine, listings on the site should cost a fee high enough to deter speculators and insincere buyers.

The result would be a choice for sellers: Either list on regular property pages and wait for offers or check out the group of serious buyers in the market – or both.

Free Business Idea – No 3:  Light switch app for smart phones

Wouldn’t it be great if you could integrate your TV/DVD/Receiver/HiFi remote controls on your smart phone by simply downloading an app ? I personally hate having several remote controls sitting next to me (when watching a movie for example), when I already carry my smart phone everywhere (my choice of course ). And to make it even better, why not integrate a function so I can switch of the lights from my smart phone, too ?

 

 

3 Free Business Ideas

As we come up with great business ideas all the time without having the resources to realize them all, we decided to publish the best of them here for free so you can grab them and start your own business.  Why not try one out ? Fun garantueed.

Good luck !

P.S. Do let us know how you are getting on !

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Free Business Idea – No 1:  The Underwater iPod and The Underwater Music System

Listening to music while working out is proven to significantly improve your performance or increase your endurance. In simple terms: it’s just more fun to sweat with music ! But what can those poor swimmers, triathletes etc do when having to swim length after length after length without any entertainment at all, not only needing to fight the aching muscles but the boredom of it all, too.

Solution for Swimmers:
An underwater ipod that can be clipped onto the swimmig costume.

Solution for Sound Engineers & Swimming Pool Manufacturers:
A sound system that  works underwater.

 

Free Business Idea – No 2:  Floor Windows

Imagine this: you’ve just woken up ready for breakfast. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could see through a floor window to the level below, allowing you to know whether breakfast has been served ?

Why only have windows to see the outside ? Windows to the next room have already been invented but how about floor windows allowing you to see what’s going on downstairs ? Obviously this is only an option if your house has more than one level. Just don’t stand on the glass wearing a skirt

 

Free Business Idea – No 3:  The Noodle Art Cafe

You might be familiar with the concept of a cafe where – other than eat & drink – you can also paint pottery. It has been successfully executed in many places such as London, Dubai … Parents love this concept as it allows their children to create their painting mess elsewhere other than at home. And kids love to make a mess, particularly when mum or dad don’t mind.

So how about taking this idea to home-made noodles ? Children get a choice of differently coloured noodle dough (natural and/or artificial colours) and a selection of differently shaped noodle cutters to make their own personal pasta. Every table has a heatable pasta pot (either integrated in the table or re-moveable) to boil the unique creations in a few minutes. Once ready,  it is time for a yummy family meal. Sauces could be provided. It’s simple and fun !

Additional Ideas:

- professional photo memories
- retail corner with unique pasta shapes (specialty pasta)
- birthday parties
- competitions for the wackiest, prettiest, biggest ….noodle
- dry the noodle creations in an oven, so kids can take their creations home and/or give it away as presents
- gift wrapping for dried noodle creations

 

 

 

 

Your Highway to Success: The 3 Best Ways To Eliminate a Limiting Belief

Even though we might have tried hard, we often don’t succeed at finding the right partner, the fulfilling job or the losing the extra weight because underlying  (and unsconscious!!!) beliefs of ours are in the way.

In the last article you learnt how to reveal those beliefs hidden in your subconscious.  Once  aware of a specific limiting belief, you have the power to eliminate it and/or transform it into an empowering belief.  In this article I will show you how.

If, however, you cannot find at least one limiting belief keeping you from having the success you want, you are either already winning or you need to have a look at my last article “How to reveal  your limiting beliefs”  and then come back to learn how to eliminate this obstacle for good.

Unfortunately, beliefs are held in the subconscious and that is why they have so much power over you. Until you work on revealing your beliefs and bringing them to consciousness, you usually don’t even know you have them. To change them, willpower is not enough as it only affects your conscious mind. Follow the below outlined methods, however, and you will successfully impact your subconscious and clear your highway to success.

Here are some more good news. Ultimately, your limiting beliefs are nothing else but learned thought patterns and they can be un-learned and changed. These thought patterns have been established in your childhood by repeatedly getting a message from an important figure (of authority) such as “don’t trust strangers”. These messages were useful or vital in your life at the time and you therefore made them your “truths”. Continuing to live by a belief such as, “strangers can’t be trusted” without checking its validity in your adult life, might now be in the way of you forming fast and strong partnerships.

So let’s see what you can do to replace it with a more useful thought pattern.

Use this 2 step process:

1. Find the right empowering belief you would like to hold (but don’t belief at all at the moment) which would truly be useful to reach your goals. Only that it feels like a lie at the moment.
2. Then re-program your subconscious mind to embed this new empowering belief. I will show you 3 different methods to choose from.

 

Step 1: Finding the right empowering belief

A common mistake when trying to change beliefs is not to spend time on identifying the right empowering belief for YOU ! What works for your friend or neighbour, might not be phrased right for you. Commercially available CD’s with empowering beliefs might feel cheesy and wrong to you – and then they don’t work !

Take your time to find the right empowering belief for you. To do that, first pick holes into your limiting belief … (start with the one that is most in the way of your success)

1. first write your negative belief on top of a page of paper
2. Think back to the time when you first established this belief. Who told you ? While it probably made sense at the time, do the assumptions of that time still hold true ?
3. now write down answers to the following questions:
   1. i.      What examples can I think of when this belief was NOT true or did not apply ?
   2. ii.      In what way is this belief ridiculous or absurd ?
   3. iii.      What will it cost me to keep this belief ?

Now think of a belief that you would like to hold instead, a belief that would be so good, so useful for you to have but it simply feels like a lie at this moment. It would be fit into this: “If only….. ‘empowering belief’….. was true, … life would be so much better”.

Make sure your belief is phrased in present tense (not future) and is positive, e.g. “Most strangers are trustworthy” (good) rather than “I will not doubt strangers anymore” (bad).

Change the wording  of your empowering belief and tweak your phrase until it feels like something you would love to believe (although you can’t at this stage). Now, find as many pieces of evidence you can to prove that our new empowering belief could be true (under certain circumstances/sometimes).

a.write this empowering belief on top of a piece of paper
b. now think about how your life would be different if you held this belief. What would it be like ? How would I benefit ?
c. now write down the answers to the following questions:

i. what evidence and support can I find for this belief ?
ii. When exactly has it already been true ?

You know have weakened your existing limiting belief and strengthened your new empowering belief.  To firmly establish the new empowering belief in your subconscious use one (or more) of the following three methods.

 

1. Positive Affirmations

If you have tried positive affirmations with an awkward sentence (from a CD or course) that didn’t feel like the right empowering belief for you and that wasn’t  strengthened in the way described above, you have probably had limited success with affirmations till now. You might even hold a limiting belief on this topic !

Most people don’t know how to use positive affirmations effectively. Positive affirmations work on the following principle:

Any thought you have over and over again will eventually be passed to your subconscious to form a belief there. That’s how all your beliefs were formed. In order to over-write a limiting one, you need to think a thought over and over again for a “long” time. Just imagine, how often you have been thinking your limiting thought !

So how do you do that ?

Take  the empowering belief and write it down. Keep it somewhere where you see it every day. Hang it up somewhere or write it in your diary, set an alarm or write it on random post-its.

Choose a regular time to read this belief to yourself aloud. Do it with impact, as if you are convincing yourself. Do it to your mirror image – the proven most powerful method to work with affirmations. To make it more interesting, you can also sing it, choose different tonalities, voices, expressions.  Your aim is to repeat the new empowering belief so many times that it manifests itself in your subconscious. To achieve that you will have to keep going for about 21 days.

2. Visualization & the powerful secrets of NLP to increase impact and speed

Another way to “write new script” into your subconscious is to slow down your brain waves through relaxation techniques (e.g. meditation or simply closing your eyes and taking a few deep breaths) and then visualize your life imagining you already hold the new empowering belief. Best to close your eyes for this. Make sure you visualize with all 5 senses, imagining the sounds and voices you would hear, the things you would see, feel , taste and smell.

To make this visualisation even more impactful, think back to a time when the new empowering belief has already been true for you. Pretending you are seeing this past experience with a movie camera, notice the colours in this image, the focus of your camera lense, the voice-effects/tonality and now transfer the same colours, focus, voice-effects to your visualization of living with your empowering belief.

3. Hypnosis/Self-hypnosis

Hypnosis is a proven technique to generate the relaxed state of mind required to access the subconscious mind. If you are like me and you don’t feel comfortable letting somebody else guide you into your subconscious, why not record your own script and then listen to it ? That way you stay in complete control without losing the powerful impact hypnosis can have for establishing new empowering beliefs. If you want to find out how to develop impactful self-hypnosis scripts click on the link to find a free tutorial/example (please note, the link leads you to an external page and the tutorial was free at the time of publishing this article).

My strong recommendation is two use positive affirmations and visualizations together and to experiment with self-hypnosis.You have a lot to gain and nothing to lose.

How to reveal your (limiting) beliefs ?

Great, you have decided to understand the underlying beliefs behind your thoughts, feelings and actions. That’s an excellent investment of your time. All effort and resources spent on the level of thought, feeling or action (the focus of most of the training courses on the market) can only be temporary. To go back to the power of belief article outlining the connection between beliefs and your success click on the link.

I will share with you a process of  3 different methods for revealing your belief system and then guide you in how to discern between the useful and the limiting beliefs.

My advice is to start your own personal belief sheet, which you will begin now but keep building over time. As you build this sheet adding a new belief of yours everytime you discover one, you will get a more and more accurate blue print of the way you see the world.

First of all, let me talk about what a belief is. I am defining it as a “rule” you have made up about the world or a part of it. A belief can be expressed (and written onto your belief sheet) as a statement such as “you have to work hard to succeed” or “I am really bad with numbers”.  These statements might feel totally true for you, but they are not universal truths. In case of the statement “you have to work hard to succeed” you could find lots of counter examples: there are definitely lots of people out there who succeed at something without working hard….
In case of “I am really bad with numbers”, you could choose to get better with numbers, get tips from somebody on how to memorize them or work them faster. Being really honest with yourself, you might even find that there was a time in your life when you were NOT really bad with numbers.

So, what you are looking for when filling in your personal belief sheet are statements like the ones above.

I am going to lead you through a process for finding your beliefs now. Here is the first method for finding yours: Messages from childhood

Take 10 minutes and write down all the messages you got from your parents or significant authorities in your life when you were a child. They could be statements such as “You are rubbish at drawing”, “You are great with your little sister”, “Money doesn’t grow on trees (we have to spend it wisely)”, “Life is tough”, “Don’t trust strangers” etc

Here is the second method: Sentence completion

Complete the following sentences as fast as you can. It ‘s important that you don’t spend too much time on each but move through them swiftly. The faster you work through them, the less chance for your ego to censor your answers and the more accurate your sentences. No one will check your answers, you don’t have to please anyone with your answers. You just want to get to know yourself:

1. Life is…………..
2. Life is not ………….
3. Money is …………
4. Money is not…………….
5. Friends are ………..
6. Friends are not ………….

 

1. Having a job/career is ………..
2. Doing what you love is ……………
3. I am ……………
4. I am not …………
5. Love is……..
6. Love is not ……..

.

Here is the third method: Obstacles to your dream life

Think about 3 things you would love to have/be/do/have achieved – 3 things that would make your life so much more pleasant.  You don’t have to spend too much time on finding the perfect 3 things. You can always come back to find more or change them, but once you find 3 nice things you would like, write these 3 things down as goals, e.g.

1. Find my dream partner.
2. Make double the money I make now.
3. Publish my first book.

So, how will you find beliefs with this method ? Imagine now that you get the mission to go for these goals right now, that you have to get going on them and make them happen.

Taking one goal at time some serious and quite specific objections will creep up inside you. Write them down immediately. These are your beliefs !

For example you could be thinking “dream partners don’t exist”, “I am not attractive/interesting enough”, “it’s a waste of time looking for a partner, he/she should find me”.

As you probably noticed this last method reveals mainly limiting beliefs.

Add the results from all 3 methods to your personal belief sheet, then take each statement in turn and judge whether this belief is useful for you and for achieving your life goals “Is this belief helpful/useful ?”. Statements like “I am great with children” might be useful for some of your goals. Statements  like “I am not good enough” are never useful.

When you are at this stage with your limiting beliefs revealed, you might understand why you never seem to achieve certain goals of yours but more importantly you are now in a position to replace the non-useful limiting beliefs with empowering ones.

And if you can’t find enough motivation to work on them for yourself, then do it for your (future) children as they will – through your behaviours – automatically take over your (limiting) beliefs,  thereby perpetuating the “stuckness” in certain areas of life.

The secret force behind every success

Have you ever wanted to change (really wanted to),  read a self-help book, understood what it was telling you, agreed with the authors suggestions and recommended actions, yet did NOT act on it ?  I bet you have. Haven’t we all ?

Have you every wondered why ? It makes no sense. Some coaches and psychologists explain this with the notion that there is something else you want more that’s in the way but there is something much more powerful at play here.

Picture this: If you were thirsty but had no idea what “drinking” is (ok the example is weird, but stay with me for a moment), you would look for a solution. If somebody explained to you what water is, how it can quench your thirst, explained to you how to drink and then gave you a glass of water. Would you leave it next to you, look at it and then dehydrate and die ? No ! You would drink it.

What’s the difference ?

NO, it’s not the effort involved. If the only glass of water available was on top of a tree and you had broken your leg, believe me, you would try to climb it or come up with a way to get it, believe me ! But if you didn’t believe there was any water up there (even though someone told you), you wouldn’t bother.

What you believe, becomes your truth, defines your world or your map of the world. While mostly unconscious, these beliefs define your actions every day, every moment. They are more powerful than any new resolution you have ever taken. Whatever doesn’t conform with them, stands no chance of being implemented.

Here is how the process works:

YOUR ACTIONS -> are defined by your feelings. If you feel angry, you kick, curse, pull a face , shout or whatever else. If you feel happy, you sing, smile, joke or help somebody else.

YOUR FEELINGS ->ARE determined by your thoughts. YES ! Every feeling is the result of a thought, even if you don’t notice the thought. If the lady next to you at the coffee shop starts joking loudly with a friend on the phone  you might think “how rude” and feel angry/annoyed and turn away, roll your eyes and/or make an angry comment (all actions). If, however, you think ” how nice to have friends to joke with”, you might feel good about having friends yourself, might smile and pick up your own phone to one of them or get up to buy a gift for your partner or whatever else. Two completely different outcomes based on a different thought about the same situation.

YOUR THOUGHTS -> So what determines your thoughts ? Your beliefs. Beliefs are the rules you have made up about the world, e.g. “life is hard (or serious)”, “nobody likes me”, “I always screw things up” etc or “I always find the best deals”, “life is fun”, “I am always lucky with the people I meet”. These beliefes have been formed in your childhood and the majority would have been passed onto you by your parents, so are a reflection of what they made up about life/the world.
To stay within the same example above. If you believed that ” people are generally selfish”, you would think the “how rude” thought about the lady in the coffee shop. If you believed that “people are fundamentally good” and or “everyone deserves a good friend/laugh” you would forgive her and think ” how nice to have friends to joke with”.

YOUR BELIEFS

Most of our beliefs, i.e. the rules we have made up about how life and the world works, are burried in the unconscious which is why we are not aware about their power and their immense impact on our thoughts, feelings and ulitmately actions.

It’s your beliefs which prevent you from acting on something that makes obvious sense for you. If you are desperate to change your job and turn for help then read or hear about how to come up with the right job for you, how to find it and apply for it. You will still not go for it if you believe that “all new jobs are terribly stressful”, “every new boss will always exploit you”, “last in, first out” or any other such belief.

When your rational mind struggles with your subconscious, your subconscious always wins. Sometimes your rational mind keeps the upper hand for a while, while you really focus on it, i.e. an exercising programme, but soon your unconscious takes over again.

If you truly want change and success, you need to:

1. Become aware of the beliefs you have (I will explain the process for that in the http://www.developandgrow.com/lifecoach/blog/how-to-reveal-your-limiting-beliefs/)

2. Check each belief and decide whether it is still an accurate reflection of the world you live in and whether it is still useful to have this belief. Remember, while beliefs feel like truths, they are not. Two people can have opposing beliefs both fully convinced they are right (ever come across that ? ). In a follow-up article I will explain how beliefs are formed in child hood and how you can change them now.

3. Define the beliefs you would love to have or which would simply be really useful to have. These will feel like “lies” to you at first, but the beliefs you hold right are no more true either, you just made them so and you can undo that/change that.

4. Develop your new beliefs through one or several methods which I will explain in the follow-up article.

 

All I would like you to take away from this article is the fact that your actions and hence your success will always be determined by your underlying beliefs, which you are (most likely) unconscious of. So, if you are currently not doing  the things, that you fully agree would be good for you or lead you to success, then your beliefs are in the way. You will not change this by forcing yourself  to act against your beliefs (temporarily). The only way to change this is by working on your beliefs.

 

Parenting After Death OR “Must Do” For Your Children While Alive !

Are you a parent ? Do you have a legal will (done through a notary public) ? Have you specified exactly what you want for your children should you pass away unexpectedly ? When I say “what you want for your children” I don’t just mean who looks after them and how much money they receive, but also HOW you want your children to be brought up !

If you have done all that, “hat off”, you are much better than me !

We have moved so many times, that – until recently – I always deferred making a will for all sorts of reasons and excuses. While the material side of things doesn’t interest me quite as much, it had suddenly occurred to me that it did not only matter who looked after her after our unexpected deaths but also HOW she would be raised. I began to ask myself: What mattered to me about her upbringing ? What sort of person did I want her help to become ? Which life lessons would I want to pass on ? And…. How could I help her nominated guardians to provide all of this ?
That day, I sat down and filled sheets of papers with my notes, the result of which you will find below. This table is now with our nominated guardians containing WHAT we want for our daughter, WHY we believe this matters and HOW we believe this can be achieved. I wanted them to have it now, while they can ask questions and clarify anything they might not understand. A copy is also with our will.

I feel very passionate about leaving our children not only material goods but also a plan for their guardians to support them in raising our children as closely to what we would have done. It is hard enough for children to lose their parents. By planning for how we want them to grow up we live on beyond our deaths. I believe our children will thank us for this type of caring beyond their time on earth. They definitely deserve it !

Please consider what you want to leave to your children beyond your material goods. Write a letter, a table like the one below, drawings or make video messages. Whatever your unique style of expressing yourself, leave them your wisdom, your passion, your views ! Please leave them something more than your money ! May our work below inspire you !

WHAT WE WANT FOR OUR DAUGHTER
OVERALL OBJECTIVE:
For her to be happy, confident, independent and a creative thinker

	Objective	Rationale	Tools & How to Do It
	Specifically: Support her / help her to
1	Know Who She Is &Have the Strength To Be True to Herself (not succumb to social or peer pressure or fall into the status/image trap)	The smaller the gap between who we really are and the face we show to the world, the happier we are. There is no real happiness in being admired, loved, respected for something that’s not truly us and by somebody who only knows our mask. Even if it feels difficult at first or requires courage in the face of a peer group with different ideas, standing by one’s principles and beliefs has tremendous pay-offs for self-respect and personal well-being in the long run. Having clear principles helps the decision making process.	-          Point out what kind of person you see in her -          re-inforce original thinking -          re-inforce any attempt to withstand social or peer pressures and support her through the corresponding feelings -          share stories of people who stuck to their beliefs against adversity -          re-inforce initiative and standing up for oneself -          take a public stand for one’s passions oneself (role model) -          Actively share your own decision making strategies with her and teach her a simple tool such as scenario analysis (or else)
2	Further develop her strengths, define and celebrate  her passions so that she can deploy herself to it (we see the time in university as part of this exploration phase and want her to experience the opportunities university offers)	Rather than focusing on eliminating her weaknesses, using the same energy to further build her strength will not only provide a higher return on effort but also build self-esteem, confidence and make any weakness easier to tackle at her own pace and initiative. Helping her deploy herself in the area of her passions (whatever it may be) will make her persist when the going gets tough because more than money or rational reasons will drive her – her heart will make her want to go on, beating anybody who is only in it for the money or short-term gains (these people usually leave the field when it gets tough). This is a recipe for happiness with success as a side product. University studies can be a time of great opportunity and freedom to choose one’s own direction. We want her to experience this.	-          Start a list of strengths you seen in her and tell her (with examples) where you see her use the strength -          Provide opportunities (courses, social groups, challenges) that allow her to build her strengths further -          Minimize time spent on weaknesses (be it from a criticism of others, school reports etc), instead discuss how the application of one of her strengths can improve the matter at hand -          watch which activities she engages in without being asked to & what she seems to enjoy and have fun with (intrinsic motivation and indication of a potential passion) -          listen to what she speaks passionately about -          have her take Martin Seligman’s strength inventory (or up-to-date equivalent) and discuss results and indicated actions/new areas to apply these strengths to
3	Develop strong self-esteem and self-confidence		-          apply a supportive, loving parenting style with clear rules but positive re-inforcement rather than punishement -          constantly look for little signs of positive behaviour (even if it was only 5% of he whole) and highlight it/recognize her for it rather than mentioning any negative behaviour – ignore the latter
4	Have the social skills to develop, keep and nurture meaningful relationships	Functioning relationships are a key factor in determining human happiness.	-          be a role model for how to be a good friend -          point out good relationship behaviour in others -          help her manage expectations of others pro-actively by talking and NEVER assuming anything. -          Help her manage conflict by talking and making her own feelings understood without BLAMING (blaming is always based in assuming the other parties intentions – instead of assuming, find out by asking about their intentions) -          Encourage her to enroll in a coaching training (preferably co-active coaching like her parents) to enhance her relationship skills (and her career perspectives)
5	Have the skill to reflect upon experiences and learn from it to take more choiceful actions (live consciously)	There is no failure, only feedback ! Failures only stay failures if we don’t learn from them and get stuck in them or stop with them. We become more courageous when we know that we can only win: either succeed immediately or learn something (and succeed later). It’s a no-lose proposition.	-          designate a time every day to discuss (or even just a private reflection time for each family member) what happened during the day and what one can learn from it to create new more powerful actions -          whatever she perceives as a failure, help her turn it into a gain by finding the lesson/learning and trying again – applying her new wisdom in the matter (and do it again and again if needed)
6	Have her enjoy the journey of life rather than just the “achieving of goals”	Deferring the joy of life to later by sacrificing one’s life quality for a distant goal is the life concept of the rat racer. This concept is meanwhile proven to lead to unhappiness. Goals are still important but only as a north star to have a clear path. Beyond that it’s all about enjoying the journey along the path.	- point out the little joys and beauties of the moment - bring to consciousness the relative low feeling of achieving sth vs. the anticipation and work towards it using examples in Chiara’s life from school or hobbies
7	Instill an attitude of “give/do your best” AND a detachment from the outcome	You can’t control everything. The best we can do is plan and then give our best. The final outcome depends on more factors than our effort and pre-work and it is pointless to feel disappointed for too long about one-moment-in-time results.  Instead we should feel pleased with the feeling of having given our very best regardless of the outcome.	- always point out that what  you expect is her giving her best not winning or being better than others - play down disappointing results highlighting your pride in her having prepared well and given her best (later find potential learnings) - point out that you have seen her competence in the matter in the preparatory work and that the dissatisfactory outcome doesn’t say anything about her true abilities
8	Give her the gift of recognizing her limiting perspective and consciously choosing a more resourceful one: a) lemons into lemonade, b) macro perspective / bigger picture, c) focus on what to be grateful for	To be able to choose perspectives consciously is to live positively and constructively and a proven factor of happiness.	Lemons into lemonade: point out how something “bad” could actually be good news or at least have a little “good” thing in them (ask her to always look for this good thing and manage her expectations: something it’s hard to find, sometimes it only becomes clear later, but it’s ALWAYS there !) Macro perspective/bigger picture: ask her to have a look at the current situation from 5 years down the line, ask her how she will see the matter when she is a grandma, ask her what she will remember about it in one year. Ask her to imagine being a bird and looking down at her own life, what does she notice about the matter at hand. Gratefulness: Ask her to count her blessings regularly (proven to boost happiness). Ask her what she is grateful for. If she says nothing, ask her what she would miss, if everything was taken from her.
9	Always accept responsibility for her actions, become a doer/learner not a blamer/victim	Blaming others/circumstances takes our power away, makes us passive, helpless and  victim.	Discourage her from blaming circumstances, others etc. Instead, ask her how she could have created the right circumstances beforehand OR how she could have prepared the relevant people better beforehand. Ask her what she would do differently if she could do it again. Or what advice she would give somebody who attempted the same matter as her.
10	Bear hurtful comments or behaviour from others.  Understand that other people’s comments ALWAYS say more about themseves than they say about her. Remember: “It’s not about YOU!”	Fact: All people are mainly concerned with themselves. Any (hurtful, nasty) comment anybody ever makes about somebody else is ALWAYS a reflection of themselves NOT of the person to whom the comment is directed. It reveals their own wounds, their own fears. Understanding this truth, makes us less vulnerable, more compassionate even towards our “enemies” as they are not truly wanting to hurt us, they are just stuck and afraid in their own world and don’t know how else to alleviate the pain.	-          remind her of the fact that others’ hurtful behaviour and comments are actually “NOT ABOUT HER” -          help her see what could motivate another person to say mean things/behave badly (what is this person in desperate need of ?) and how this could alleviate the other person’s fears or make them feel better temporarily -          help her work out (re-)actions with this perspective in mind: does she need to react at all ? does she need to help the “attacker” rather than fight back ? is compassion called for ? -          teach her ways to deal with bullies (i.e. get help from adults/authorities instantly, ignore them/ walk away etc)

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