Positivity is important when it grounds us in reality. Positivity has to be grounded in reality if it is to begin to change negative thinking. No amount of thinking positively is going to help someone run a marathon this afternoon, but using it to support a training programme is very likely to help them maintain confidence in their ability to complete their goal.

“I have so much to do, my goals will have to wait…”

​We are all guilty of taking on too much While in the short term, this can be stressful, the pressure lifts and we are able to refocus on what we need to do for ourselves. Stop and ask yourself: why am I taking on so much? Do I find it difficult to say no?

Sometimes we blunder through a busy schedule because we are unsure of what we could achieve.

“One day my numbers will come up…” Like a lottery, we assume things will work out in the long run. The success we desire is put to one side and we convince ourselves that we are being positive by pushing on with life, in the hope that one day we will magically achieve our goals. By following this route, we are sacrificing the freedom to be in control of our lives by taking positive action and achieving the results we desire.

“It’s a nice idea, but really? Could I?”

What makes Coaching with Hypnosis different?

“I’m not sure what my goals are…”

​Firstly we have no idea what we could achieve until we have done it! We can stop ourselves from taking the first step because we have always worked and lived in the same way. Sometimes the negative ‘voice’ from our childhood stops us in our tracks. We watch other people achieve success and think they are different. The truth is they are the same, we all have the ability to achieve our goals.

Banishing those negative, unhelpful ways of thinking that hamper us are the first step to a happier and more contented life.

More Information is available at Kettering and Oundle Coaching

Obstacles to Success

Hypnosis and Professional Coaching

I will introduce you to the use of Hypnosis as a tool to help maximise your efforts. By learning how to use focused relaxation and real positive suggestions, you can acquire the skills how to re-programme your thinking and challenge the obstacles which previously prevented you from succeeding.

Stumbling Block Number One:

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Strangely a very similar thing is occurring with the person with burnout.  Pressure builds up, quite often over a long period of time, until something has to give. There has to be a release to the built-up pressure - and their mind uses a pressure value to deal with it: the stress symptoms. 

An initial consultation allows us both to establish how coaching will be of benefit to you and set a plan tailor made to your goals and begin on your way to success.

Stumbling Block Number Two:

Compare the cost of someone being signed off from work and the ensuing costs to the company, alongside the eventual cost to the individual, and the investment of a coaching and support programme that helps prevent that from happening. The cost of a programme that is similar to that of corporate CPD training is far lower than that of the financial overhead of an unwell employee.

There must be a few things that are of little use as the advice to ‘just think positive’; and this is coming from a therapist! It's the ‘just’ part of that advice that bothers me the most. If turning negative thinking and attributions was as simple as just thinking positively, wouldn’t everyone do that?

Correct - the job cannot change, but the person can. The way they manage the demands of that job can. The job demands don’t just happen to us.  We are not passive recipients - we respond to the demands and this is dictated by the individual level of pressure we are currently holding on to.

Stumbling Block Number Three:

Why dealing with the stresses of the past helps coping with current and future stresses

“I would like to make those changes, but I have family/work commitments which have to come first…”

Of course, our family commitments are important, but we must be careful that we do not put ourselves last.  Consider the airline rule that says during an emergency, to ensure a child’s best chance of survival, parents are instructed to put the oxygen mask on themselves first before placing one on their child.  How will those important to you benefit when you are healthy, wealthy and happy?

Use Coaching with Hypnosis to overcome obstacles and work towards greater success and happiness.

Hypnosis is most usefully described as focused relaxation that helps you become more aware and allows you to suggest different ways of behaving enhancing your efforts as you work towards your goals.

In  day to day circumstances, when we catch ourselves thinking negatively it would be useful to consider three things:

I don’t have the time to do that - spending time managing stress takes me away from the job and means I’m more stressed trying to catch up later.

Emotional Labour and the Workplace

3 KickStart Steps

Higher levels of Emotional Labour result in a greater risk of burnout

Can you really afford to not invest in the skills to manage the job strain? You could always wait until you have burnout - then you would have loads of time! It can be achieved progressively over time as part of your working diary - it doesn’t haven’t have to be an ‘instead of’ thing. Coaching support does not have to be a week-by-week appointment either, the key is consistency over a period of time. A couple of times a month can be enough to make a difference.

       Is this a really useful way to thinkright now?  

       It may be the perfect way to think about the situation in a different context, but right now?

       Will I care about this by the weekend? It may seem hugely important now, but will it matter so much later?

       Does the situation justify this level of negative emotion?

       Perhaps you are feeling negative about something else? Is it just the pressure valve for that? 

“My boss/family keep telling me I should…”

​Our goals should be our own. Given the opportunity, there is a long list of people around us who will tell us the things we should be doing. Although well-meaning, the advice fails to make a difference because those are their goals and not ours. People can find it difficult to achieve success because they are not committed to what they want and spend time working to achieve success for others.

Ask yourself: forgetting everything else - what do you want? What would make you happier?

Imagine the situation… you receive a Christmas gift from your aunt and you really don’t like it. Of course, you don’t want to hurt her feelings so you ‘put on a brave face about it’. You smile and get on with the day. You have to maintain it all day…but it’s okay, it’s only one day.

By reducing the level of inner pressure the person has ‘more room’ to deal with the demands of the job. They are in a better position to deal with it. They will of course still find the demands of the job stressful - but will be better placed to manage that pressure.

Isn’t it going to be expensive? Money is tight in any organisation - should we really be spending money on this?

Coaching provides you with a sounding board to discuss, organise and activate different ways of achieving the success you desire. Working together we identify the most useful and effective ways for you to take the steps towards achieving your goals. We work on clarifying what you would like your future to look like. Through a supportive and personalised approach, we put in place the necessary elements that will help you to focus on your success.

It’s okay to have negative thoughts, life is no fairytale.

They are your thoughts so, no matter how difficult, you can challenge and change them.

Improving our careers, going for a promotion, being fitter and healthier, and overcoming that fear or anxiety, are just some examples of goals we may have. Our busy lives mean that we have little time to think about it. Typically we give serious thought to our goals when we are stressed and looking for a way out. However,  we don’t always know how to make the change happen, or it feels like such an ambitious task that it seems unachievable.

Is there something you’ve been thinking

about doing but have yet to start or complete?

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“I’m too old for all that now…”

 Age is not a barrier to our success, if anything it makes it easier as now you have the life experience to use as a reference to inform the steps along the way to achieving your goals.

What do you know with experience that's going to be useful in your future?

Changing Unhelpful Thinking

You cannot change the pressure of the job. The demands of the job are not going to change.

Imagine if your job required you to conceal your true emotions and have to put a ‘brave face on’ while dealing with difficult circumstances. Imagine if maintaining that concealment determined your wages, and your success at a performance review. 

The act of managing feelings and how you express them to cope with the demands of the current circumstances. This is particularly problematic if a person’s true feelings are having to be suppressed. 

If you stopped for a moment and asked yourself how would you like your life to be different and what changes you could make, most of us would dip into our psychological wish list. The list of goals and aspirations that help us feel happier, more content and fulfilled, is something we carry around with us but for one reason or another, we struggle to make them a reality.

Imagine a child filling up a water balloon. Slowly the rubber stretches to accommodate the increasing amount of water. It does a good job - more and more water is filled into the balloon and it gets bigger and bigger. Imagine the child keeps going…imagine that the water gets closer to the top of the balloon and the rubber is stretched and at breaking point. What’s going to happen? It’s going to burst and the kid is going to get wet!

In my experience, people often underperform because there is a conflict between their desires and their belief in their own abilities.

The task of making changes to improve our life appears scary and sometimes a complex process preferring to stick with the status quo.  Staying with what we know and not upsetting the ‘apple cart’ is perhaps the first obstacle to people achieving their goals.