Tag: Self Esteem

What is a Life Coach?

Oct. 31 Featured Posts 3 comments

We all want to be Happy, Healthy and Successful. The good news is that it is all within your reach. A life coach can help and guide you to reach your goals, to
become who and what  you want to be, and to free you from all your self-limiting beliefs.

Life coaching is based on overcoming your obstacles and then using practical, forward thinking techniques you can use in everyday life and decisions that will achieve a change in direction for a better future. It is one of the most powerful support systems to help get you moving in the direction you want.   A life coach can help you to clearly identify your goals and then guide you towards making them real.

The life coaching process is a journey of self-discovery and will offer you alternative life choices. You will be amazed at how this process with benefit you and helps you move forward with a positive outlook.

Life coaches make use of several techniques to assist you.  They begin by helping you to identify the issues that may be preventing you from moving forward towards a better and more successful future. By working closely with your life coach, you will be able to plan the right steps for you to take in order to reach your future goals, whether they are short or long term.

The truth is, all the complex situations and issues in your life, both personal and professional, start from an unresolved first incident. The situation becomes more complicated over time as more incidents occur with little or no action being taken to resolve it. Let us look at this objectively.  Maybe you had the chance to resolve an issue at the time it first happened but you chose not to think about or work on it.  You might have thought that if you just left it alone, it would go away. The end result is that you are now stressed and unhappy.  You might even be in denial – acting as if nothing is wrong and still avoiding tackling the matter. However, you have to take responsibility for whatever this issue is that is holding you back. It is in your hands to nip the incident in the bud before it becomes a bigger issue.

We all know the tale about the little Dutch boy who stuck his finger into the dam to plug a water leak and stayed there all night until the leak could be mended and so saving the entire town from certain flooding. The boy could have left the leak in the hope that it would lessen, but instead his quick thinking and courage prevented a small leak from becoming a flood. The moral of the story is that it is better to resolve a situation when it is still small and manageable otherwise it can snowball and become a crisis. Once you start doing this it will make it so much easier to deal with any situation.

Where life coaching comes in is in guiding you through a process of understanding your current  situation and the issues surrounding it.  A life coach will work to help you to discover your true potential and then show you how to prioritize your life in order to fulfill your goals.

Everyday, you have to make decisions, some minor, some major but the first step in the process is to ask yourself: do I need a new way to look at the decisions I am making?

If you are not totally happy with the direction of your life ask yourself the following questions:

  • Why did this happen?
  • What can I do to avoid this happening again?

If you have difficulty answering, then a life coach would be the perfect solution.  They will help you to unearth and reveal deeply seated and hidden values that shape all your decisions in life.

Nadia Sylvester is a qualified Life Coach and the founder of NSP Coaching.

Visit Nadia’s official website to learn about her methods of Life Coaching.

Listen to Nadia’s interview on Spiritual Perpsectives

Listen to internet radio with Sara Vitale and Dawn Kaztin on Blog Talk Radio
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Emotional Guide to Actively Looking For a New Job.

Jun. 14 Unemployment no comments

Haven’t found a job yet?  Try changing your approach.

Although the US unemployment rate is down a couple of points from last year, a large percentage of people are still unemployed, underemployed or just plain unhappily employed.  In a time when we have identified our work and financial status with our esteem, this could be pretty devastating.  Being out of work lowers not only our vibration  about money and finances but also how we feel about ourselves as people.  When you factor in the process of searching for a job, that vibration lowers even further.

You find a job that you feel you are perfect for, send in resume and cover letter and hope for the call back.  You go to all the employment agencies and you do everything you have been taught to do in order to find a job. You might get some interviews, maybe even some second interviews but then you never hear anything again. How you are feeling about yourself might be at an all time low.

The first thing to do is stop thinking yourself to the point of craziness. The second step is to take a step back and evaluate how you approach the job search.  You might find that you might need to approach it from a completely different way.  The most important action you can take is to be active in not only your pursuit of a job but also of your mental well being.

Patty Sigmon-Maize has been looking for work for almost a year now. Conversations with her inevitably include phrases such as:  it’s hard, the economy is bad, no one is hiring, I’ve sent my resume every where and no one is calling back, etc.  (Do you hear yourself reflected in any of these comments?)

It can be defeating, a lot of times you are dealing with the fears of age, no longer having a clear career path and how to find a job in this economy.

Not long ago I checked in with Patty again and I was happily surprised.  The conversation went a very different direction. Instead of focusing on the reasons she was not employed, she decided to change the way she approached the job search.  She was very upbeat and energetic as she told me about a job strategies workshop she was taking and how it had taught her a new way to actively look for a job: both mentally and physically.

In going to the California Employment Development Department she found the link to Experience Unlimited, an organization that provides job seekers a forum to meet and provide each other support.  The also offer the following:

  • Workshops on job search strategies, résumés, interview techniques, and networking
  • Résumé evaluations and mock interviews
  • Networking opportunities
  • Access to on-line job listings
  • On-line résumé postings through CalJOBSSM
  • Special events and guest speakers
  • Use of computers, printers, copiers, telephone, fax, and Internet

From joining the workshops, she then learned that one of the local universities was offering a free 6-Day Advanced Job Transition Course being taught by John Hall, who is a job coach to mid career managers and professionals who are plateaued, bored, or in transition.

From this course she learned not only how to get the interview, but how to get 10xs as many interviews, self branding, researching perspective companies but she also learned her fears surrounding looking for a job, what kind of jobs would be right for her personality and more importantly, how to be more involved in you and your job search.

When faced with a huge challenge, there are a lot of people out there that have taken what could be a very scary time in their lives and are turning their situation around and living the happy life most of us just dream about.  So the question is why not be one of those happy people?  Why not take this time to really explore what will make you happy?

 

EDD Website http://www.edd.ca.gov/

Visit John Hall’s Official Site to learn more about his Advanced Job Transition Course

Feature Photo courtesy of Blogcatalog.com

Visit our article Michael Losier’s Unempolyed or Employable for more information on how to change your vibration surrounding your job search.

 

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Jessica’s Daily Affirmation

Jun. 01 Videos 1 comment

Just how young can you be in order to start your daily affirmation exercises?  Try 4 years old.

On a day when little Jessica was feeling particularly thankful, she stood in front of a mirror and listed off everyone she liked:  her dad, cousins, aunts, mom, and sister.  She then went on to expressing how much she liked her school, her hair, her pajamas, and her room.

My whole house is great… I can do anything good…

Jessica is now 13 years old with aspirations of being either an interior designer or a lawyer.  But back in 2001 when this video was filmed, she was a cute little girl doing something that adults often forget to do:  talk to ourselves in the mirror and tell ourselves how much we love and appreciate everyone in our lives.

Several authors, experts, and teachers assert that having a positive mental attitude supported by affirmations like little Jessica’s will help us achieve success.  Affirmations are an extra tool in our arsenal to allow us to reach our goals and potential.

Affirmations are also an excellent way to raise our self esteem.  When things aren’t going well it’s easy to tell ourselves what we could’ve done or said to make things better.  But it’s much tougher for us to stop our negative thoughts in their tracks, go to a mirror, and tell ourselves that we love us just the way we are.   If we had started this practice as young as Jessica, it might have made it easier to do as we grew older.  However, it’s never too late to start.  Daily-Affirmations.com gives us a great example of the words you can say to yourself every day until you believe them:

I love and accept myself. I understand and accept that my imperfection makes me perfect. Therefore, I am perfect exactly as I am and will remain perfect as I learn and grow.

To watch the Youtube video go here.

To get more affirmations from Daily-Affirmations go here.

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Lady Gaga Still Struggles With the Effects of Being Bullied

May. 25 Everyday Life no comments

Despite being a mega-star even Lady Gaga deals with the past effects of bullying. Do you still struggle with the hurtful words from your past?

On a recent interview with Lady Gaga on ABC’s The View, they show a video clip of Lady Gaga getting ready to play at Madison Square Garden.  She is in tears and laments how she sometimes still feels like a loser kid from high school and she doesn’t want her fans to ever feel that way. Barbara Walters then asked Lady Gaga, “You are the biggest success and you feel like a loser?” Lady Gaga responds, “I think that the residual wounds from high school – being bullied and feeling not good enough – I think stays with you and it’s about everyday becoming stronger and becoming more brave.”

Think what you will about Lady Gaga, you can love her or not, love her music or not but when a mega-celebrity still carries around residual feelings of being a loser, we should take notice.

Unfortunately, the ladies from The View brought up the subject but didn’t follow through.  It would have been a great opportunity to address some major issues confronting today’s youth, like bullying and a person’s self perception. However,  they changed the subject to her eccentric wardrobe, so we never find out the extent of the bullying she was subjected to.  We can only guess that there were, at the very least, some very hurtful things said to her that she still carries around.

Whether a mega-star or just an average person, words hurt. Unfortunately, for some of us our minds are like little tape recorders. We record messages of love but also we record messages that can be devastating and crippling. The repercussions of hurtful words can affect every aspect of our lives. It could be that you look in the mirror and all you can see is what is not right with you because someone told you, you’re fat or ugly. Maybe, you don’t go after dreams like getting into the right college or finding your ideal job because somewhere in your life, someone told you that you were stupid. The list of baggage that we carry can go on and on. The best way to know if these thoughts are in your head is to look in the mirror and tell yourself  that you are smart, you are beautiful, you are perfect exactly the way you are.  Then stop and listen.  If the tape recorder immediately pops on and negates these statements or if you are struggling with your esteem in any area, you’ll hear some not very nice things repeated back to you. So how do we stop the recorder?

Athealth.com posted an article about self-esteem and offers some good advice on how to deal with negative thoughts.

It helps to take a closer look at your negative thought patterns to check out whether or not they are true. You may want a close friend or counselor to help you with this. When you are in a good mood and when you have a positive attitude about yourself, ask yourself the following questions about each negative thought you have noticed:

  • Is this message really true?
  • Would a person say this to another person? If not, why am I saying it to myself?
  • What do I get out of thinking this thought? If it makes me feel badly about myself, why not stop thinking it?

You can work on changing your negative thoughts to positive ones by:

  • Replacing the negative thought with the positive one every time you realize you are thinking the negative thought.
  • Repeating your positive thought over and over to yourself, out loud whenever you get a chance and even sharing them with another person if possible.
  • Writing them over and over.
  • Making signs that say the positive thought, hanging them in places where you would see them often – like on your refrigerator door or on the mirror in your bathroom – and repeating the thought to yourself several times when you see it.

The important thing to remember is that whoever said these things to you had to have had some pretty awful things also being said to them at some point. Otherwise, they never would have said hurtful things to begin with. It doesn’t make what they said okay but it does mean those hurtful words had everything to do with their own insecurities and hurts and very little to do with you.

On the flip side, when we have been hurt we turn that hurt around onto others.  We become the ones who say hurtful things because they were said to us at some point.  If this is happening to you, let the hurt stop with you and seek professional help.

If these feelings become overwhelming and you can see where they are stopping you from living your life to its fullest, you can try getting some professional help or talking to someone close to you whom you trust.

Click here to watch official video clip from ABC’s The View

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