If you want to achieve something for yourself or make some changes, a good place to start is to set yourself goals. If, like me, you sometimes get derailed you will find this 6-step process I recently discovered from Dr Mark Goulston, author of ‘Just Listen’, help you to stay on track.
The reason this process works is that it moves you up through the former layer of your brain to the higher functioning area. So rather than getting caught out and overpowered by emotional triggers, you can get up to the, neo-cortex layer where you can think more clearly and plan positive action. Here is how it works:
When you feel yourself starting to go astray – for example you are about to lose it with a colleague whose support you actually want or you are on your fourth day of eating healthily and you are thinking of binging on lots of chocolate – follow these six steps:
- Practice physical awareness. Identify the sensations like tension, a rapid beating heart, a craving or a feeling of light-headedness. Pinpoint them and give them a name. This will help you control them.
- Practice emotional awareness. Attach an emotion to the sensation you are feeling e.g. say to yourself “I am very angry” or “I am desperate”. By naming your feeling it will help what is sometimes referred to as the amygdala hijack – where your emotions take over any logical sense.
- Practice impulse awareness. Say to yourself “This feeling makes me want to _________________.” Being aware of your impulse will help you to resist it.
- Practice consequence awareness. Answer this question: “If I follow through with this urge, what is likely to happen?”
- Practice solution awareness. Complete this sentence: “A better thing for me to do would be _________________.”
- Practice benefit awareness. Say to yourself, “If I do that better thing, the benefits will be _______________.”
By the time you get through these six steps, you will know what you need to do to stay on track or get on track if you have come off completely. Essentially you will be able to calm yourself sufficiently to listen to your wisdom.
By the way, this is also a great process to talk through with children through their upsets and goals they want to achieve for themselves. If you get in the habit of doing this when they are young, they will become familiar with the process and internalise it for themselves. This will help them stay calm and cool under pressure when they are older.
Remember that when you feel disappointed with yourself, or you are experiencing tough times, be compassionate on yourself. Say to yourself what those who really care about you would say and then believe it. Otherwise you are not acknowledging the love they feel for you.
If you are keen to achieve more for yourself and your business and set some clear goals or you feel you are off track, then get in touch to see how I might support you with 1:1 coaching so that you can achieve what you want for yourself and your business.
Jane
