Committing to change

If you have ever tried to make a significant change in your life, you may have noticed, the changes that show you results the soonest, seem to be the easiest to stick with. This is no accident. We are wired to conserve energy, and any extra effort that doesn’t garner results quickly, may lead us to give up, rather than expend any more energy.

Committing to change is not just a conscious decision, it’s a lifestyle adjustment that requires constant focus to maintain motivation. In our hearts we know we need and want to lose weight, quit procrastinating or be more careful with our money, but our heads tell us this will take a lot of work.

The best motivation comes from seeing and feeling tangible results from the changes you are making. Developing new habits or changing old ones can take time and require you to be patient with yourself. Therefore, it is crucial to see results in the beginning because that is the time of most resistance. In fact, seeing “results” the first 30 days can make or break your success. How you define “results” for yourself can go a long way towards feeling successful, so it is important to set goals that are managable, attainable and sustainable over the long run.

Losing Weight and Gaining Inner Strength

Recently a woman hired me as a professional health coach for weight management assistance. I developed a plan to help her lose weight that would yield tangible results within the first 30 days. This is a brief outline of what the plan looked like:

• She had her complimentary session and was scheduled in for a program. She removed the “unhealthy items disguising themselves as food” from her pantry and cupboards and cleaned out the fridge.

• She also has meal plans for the week and her plan is to stay only in the outside aisles of the store where the produce, meats and dairy products are located. She only grocery shops after eating so she’s full and carries a list of foods with her.

• Additionally, she has bought walking shoes and stretch bands and started 20 minutes of brisk walking on Saturday mornings.

The key to this woman’s success was being able to see results and feel better within the 30 day time frame. I created a personalized program for her that allowed her to see real results in the mirror which motivated her to keep going and continue making changes in her life.  Reaching the stage at which you can commit yourself wholly to developing  new habits or behaviours can be richly satisfying in itself. The confidence you find in reaching this decision will help you find the strength to stay with them and achieve your goals.

Do you know what it takes to create success in your life? No Winner Ever Got There Without a Coach will help you to win. This is all part of my coaching process. I will help you discover the Best Version of You through One to One Coaching Sessions and establish achievable goals that will place you on your path to greater success. You may also wish to explore workshops and professional group coaching sessions that can help you move from where you are now to where you want to be on the spectrum of change.

What do you need to move to mastery?

Think of it like a trip. Perhaps you have not thought about where you want to go quite yet but through curiosity, the process of inspired inquiry, and decision making you might find a course of action “appear”.

Next is handling where you want to go and why? What is this journey you’re taking going to do for you? At the Best Version of You, it is of course to move you into a Better You.

It is about you bringing your best to each moment. Now come the practicalities of your journey – How to’s, why not’s and taming your inner critic standing over your shoulder reminding you to live life safe. You’ll go through this journey having fun while discovering your hidden talents and strengths. You’ll come out at the end inspired and transformed.

Why is this not good? Our body and mind should be aligned which has a double pun as a chiropractor but by aligned I mean aware & mindful of each other.

How often do injuries occur in work or play when not paying attention? When an injury has occurred where was your focus preceding it?
Our body is intelligent yet we override its feedback. We distract, diminish, ignore or are perhaps so numb from the neck down we have lost our connection to what our physical form is saying.
So I was working out and not present. I was missing an important ingredient.

I know I am not alone in this experience…

I caught myself and was reminded of an insight I had in clinical practice with patients. For stretching I’d begin the uninitiated with the cycle of “tell-show-do-review”. Tell ‘em how, show ‘em how, have them do it, & review a number of times to ensure they understand & perform correctly. I’d follow this with the classic instruction of how long to hold & number of repetitions.

It struck me one day that patients were not self actualizing in their own body by this method. If the premise is that the body has an inborn intelligence, shouldn’t it [the body] be telling us what we need? Were patients being truly present if all they had to do was hold a stretch for the count of 30 & repeat 3 times or were they just counting numbers? I did the exercise of asking myself if this instruction style was helping them get in touch within.

Actualization is when we perceive & follow our body’s clues.

Some days we may need to stretch muscles more or less depending on what we’ve done. Being present by tuning in, understanding what the body’s asking of us then delivering it – is mastery. The alternative is going through the motions because someone said do three repeats while holding 30 seconds. Yup we may need to start there but the Best Version of You is expressed through gaining the insight to listen and tune into your body’s feedback.

Is there an area in your life longing for you to tune in and listen to your body’s feedback? Coaching, workshops and retreats have been invaluable to me in deciphering messages which need some clarity so I can gain direction to move forward.

According to expert psychologists who have studied the process of change, at any point in time “only 20 percent of the population is in the process of actually making changes happen in real time.”

So what does this mean to someone who is considering making a change to improve their life?
Does it mean we should embrace hopefulness of becoming part of the 20%, or abandon hope because we are still in the 80% who are either unaware of what needs to change or who haven’t taken steps toward change yet?

Something in your life isn’t working and you want it to change – Maybe

Identifying what stage of readiness for change you are in will go a long way towards confirming what you may already know in your heart, something in your life isn’t working and you want it to change. At this point, you are closer to making change happen than someone who is “Not Ready”

Someone who is at the “Not Ready” stage may arrive for a personal coaching session with arms folded, tapping their foot impatiently. I will often ask, “Why are you here?’ and they will reply, “Because my wife made the appointment.” My next question is, “Do you want to be here?”
If the answer is, “no” then we stop the session and I ask them to return when they are in a frame of mind where they can participate willingly.
There is no point trying to convince someone of something they do not want to do. I see this exchange with the group that I refer to as “lost but doesn’t know it yet”.

Being pushed into making changes by a spouse, or given an ultimatum can often lead someone to “going through the motions” of making changes like seeking counseling, quitting smoking or adopting new eating habits – but in their heart, if the person is not committed to making changes under their own steam, success is unlikely to be sustainable.

Change is a process

Once we understand that change is a process, and that we can be at different stages in that process at different times, we are closer to identifying where we are in the process. Once you know where you are, figuring out where you’re going becomes less difficult. For most of us, facing the honest truth about where we are at can be a tough exercise. Enlisting the help of a trained coach can identify where you are and what to either leave alone (because you are not ready), or ask questions to help you move along into the next stage. If curious check out my new book No Winner Ever got there without a coach.

The most important thing to understand is that the most effective and influential person to help you create the momentum and dictate the pace and timing of making changes in your life, is you.

Watching a child learn to ride a bike for the first time can teach you a great deal. The experience is a mix of fear, exhilaration, failure and success. However, if you ask most kids, they will say learning to ride their bike for the first time was simply, “fun”.
With our life experiences we have the tendency to label them as positive or negative, the opportunity for us lies in the realization that those negative experiences can offer us positive outcomes. I believe that when we self-evaluate we can learn from them all.

Dealing with Personal Crisis

Experiences such as moving on after a divorce, dealing with loss of a loved one, or recovering from a personal health crisis can be tough on us both emotionally and mentally. However, the lessons we learn by getting through these times of high stress are often some of the most valuable and best remembered for us. Even in school, I rarely learned more from what I got right but learned a lot from what I did wrong. Through reviewing the experience, we can learn. Be it a new understanding of consequences which stimulate a new level of thinking, be it self-reflection on outcomes in what led to them and what not to repeat again. There is always opportunity there.

How do I Know When to Move On?

When you’re looking at moving on after a difficult time in your life,  there is a right time for each person to move in a different direction if their current one is not working for them. There is a right time for coaching. While in the acute phase of dealing or coping with tragedy, we may not yet be open to the question of what can we learn. There will, however, be a right time to understand that we can learn from the experience. Wanting to learn from the experience creates empowerment and many solutions come forth thus presenting the opportunity to move forward. Barring any psychiatric diseases we do have these opportunities to become more resilient, it’s not about forgetting the experience, it’s learning how we incorporate that experience to create some sort of movement in a direction that is going to be productive for us to “live forward”.

So it is about making a choice and about self-leadership. Take what you have learned about yourself from the experience to gain clarity about what it is you want in your life.

You may also enjoy my previous post : Caught in a fog

Create routines as they also become a habit & automatic.

If you have not seen Are you getting enough sleep? part one, please read first.

Handle whatever in-completions you can

Handle whatever in-completions you can, or withheld conversations before you go to bed if you can. Check in with where you are right now. If not, journal your thoughts & feelings to get them from circulating in your mind. If new thoughts or ideas crop up while in bed, have the journal available to jot them down. Once out of the head, you can go to bed to tackle them the next day. Research has also shown that if you have a problem & you pose the problem as a question then sleep on it, often the subconscious will work on a solution which presents the next morning.

Blocked emotions

Frustrations, in-completions, tolerations build up in our body so we need to work on appropriate venting throughout the day. Release is best through productive venting so talking it out, masterminds & brainstorming are helpful. Getting fresh air or scheduling in some sort of active movement, a good workout, stretches, Yoga or a Tai Chi class. Partake in an activity you enjoy as it will often re-set one’s perspective & release pent up stress chemicals. I find working on my pastel painting or piano playing tremendously resetting. I cannot focus on the other problems while doing these activities. What’s a hobby you enjoy? Whatever it is schedule it in as it often serves to reset our perspective & calms the thinking mind.

Limit stimulants & large meals before bed

Turn off the smartphone, TV & internet at a decent hour as they all act to awaken the brain. Rule of thumb – off once dark outside.

To help melatonin production – significant for sleep, sleep in a dark room so use black out curtains or eye covers. Turn over clocks so the LED is not visible, turn off receiving functions from smartphones. Fresh air if you can in your bedroom.

Don’t fall asleep on the couch

That’s why you have a bed. Really now if you are that tired go to bed. If you are used to staying up late, yet waking up tired a smarter strategy might be to reset your circadian rhythm. To do this head to bed a half hour earlier for a week, then move again by a half hour the following week until you change your time time to where you want it to be.

In an ideal world, we usually need about 8 hours per night. How much you need will vary with a number of factors. I’ve coached patients for years to take a weekend without using the clock as the guide. Go to sleep when tired, get up when you awaken & eat when hungry. No television, nada for the weekend. Somehow they survive and thrive. No computers when it is dark outside either. Usually within two days, they’ve re-set themselves & feel like they’ve had a vacation.

If your body or mind are telling you sleep is needed, get it. After injury, travel, illness, loss and yes stress we often need to re-set with more than usual, Tune into what the feedback is. Schedule sleep into your calendar. You’ll be far more productive, aware, awake, alert, creative & positive after a good night’s sleep.

Maybe you are one of the nearly ⅔ of adults experiencing disordered sleep according to the National Sleep Foundation.

Difficulty falling asleep, experiencing light sleep or non-restorative sleep for many nights in a row over a number of weeks. Makes me tired just thinking about it.

When we do not obtain enough sleep it affects our quality of life – you know it & feel it. It impacts our communication & performance in both work & home, our emotional well-being, clarity in thought, food preferences & our willingness to exercise. It also impacts our sense of connection, good decision making & repair of the body.

A leading cause of abnormal sleep pattern is stress.                      

Okay that is the obvious. How often do you find yourself with a busy mind once you put your head down on the pillow from your even busier day? Then we get worried about not getting to sleep. Worry, Anxiety, bus”y”ness releases yet more stress hormones in a response which in turn soars the mind into alarm & action.

This is the catch 22…

We wake up to the buzz of an alarm, groggy without clarity & still tired. We take stimulants – sugar, carbohydrates and caffeinated products which in turn set us up for a crash later in the day. We can get ourselves into a vicious cycle of remedies for sleep-aids & stimulants to wake up.

How you can reset?

From the Heart Math Institute, one choice is to change our dominant emotional state. Overstimulation, stress or worry creates an irregular rhythm in the heart. This is countered though by authentic emotions such as love, gratitude, appreciation, joy, compassion & peace. They have shown it lowers the stress hormones, & orders heart rhythm.
They have shown the disordered heart rhythm caused when under stressful states & can demonstrate coherent sine waves when we change our dominant emotions.

Changing our emotional tone takes practice

Prior to hitting the sack write in a journal or face yourself in a mirror to speak out loud what and who you are thankful for and what you are proud of. Do this so you really feel it. It needs to be heartfelt. Perhaps listening to coherent music, meditation, visualization or reviewing your affirmations may work.

Sending letters to people you appreciate in the early evening. This happiness for others impacts us too.

Exceedingly powerful is breathing through your nose with the exhalation slowly controlled and drawn out. Focus on this breath for a couple of minutes then with exhalation let the stress out. With inhalation let love, peace, gratitude in. Cycle this through a few times.

Put a picture in your mind of something you enjoy that is calming be it a person, place or thing – a favorite pet, a serene lake or sunset and imagine yourself in that presence. Draw upon the good emotions that picture creates for you & maintain until you feel a change in your body. It may take as little as 5 or 15 minutes.

Create a “bedtime routine”. Like with our children, we benefit from a bedtime ritual. We can train our brain & body to decompress with practice. Commit to take action on one thing for a week. Once accomplished, pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Then add in a new goal for the next week while keeping what you have already done.

Check in for more tips on the next blog on sleep – part II

Focusing on “what’s wrong” renders us powerless.                                               

Often, they have a point – some days are tough and sometimes thing do go wrong, but the burden can seem much heavier when we look at things from a negative perspective. Now stop and be honest with yourself for a minute… is that complainer you? Complaining is a way of expressing our dissatisfaction, without having to make a change. Complaining really means that you have a reference point of something you’d prefer – but are not ready to take a risk or make an investment in getting there yet. When we complain we do not take responsibility for a solution or perhaps even acknowledging our part in the creation of the event in the first place.

What is the difference between coaching and therapy?                                        

Having a reference point of what you’d prefer is where you can begin to build the Best Version of You from. In therapy, the focus is to diagnose weakness, to reveal what isn’t working and “work though” our hurt. Coaching focuses on building on your strengths. What are you good at? What is working? Building on strengths means we start from were we are right now and move ourselves with small steps in a forward direction.

Become happier, more confident and enjoy your life                                         

Looking at what you truly want, getting crystal clear on what that is, why it’s important to you and take a simple step in action (doing something). Even better if you take action within that same day. With this attitude you will find yourself focused on creating the day you do want, and those days add up to a life you do want.

There is a saying, “what we think about we bring about”.                                    

When you think about your strengths, you are:

• living in the present
• able to be creative with solutions
• able to focus our thinking and behaviour into solutions
• empowered

By building on those strengths, you are able to move forward, at a pace that suits you towards becoming happier, more confident and more satisfied with your everyday life.

dr. liz is a coach for people making life changes. Her book “No Winner Got There Without a Coach” is a helpful resource for understanding how to make positive life changes. Pre-order now for a 20% discount. Please contact dr. liz for more information on her coaching and how it can benefit you.

Possibilities or Paralysis?

With every experience we possess a choice in how we interpret and then respond. In other words, we choose how we are going to process our experience. Often we learn as children how we “should” respond through our culture – parents, siblings, peers, friends or those in positions of authority. Some cultures are very expressive or seek coaching, while others are private or internalize during tragedy so the outward appearance may look very different.

Healthy processing is a unique process for every person. There is rarely ever ‘one’ right way or order to process. Initially, we may experience shock and denial, or avoidance, or be very emotional with expressions of tears or anger. We may choose to blame or play the victim. We may bargain and rationalize, come to accept and move on, or stay in the same place without moving forward. We may feel powerless and paralyzed to change anything or we may feel guilty and fearful to make change.

Choosing How to Process Tragedy and Loss

What we can learn from our losses is that we can choose how we want to experience our tragedies, how long we want to experience our feelings and whether we want to learn something about ourselves and our life from something we view as truly horrible. Like the parents of a missing child who launch an initiative to help locate other missing children, new purpose can be found within old hurt if we are willing to walk through the pain of our emotions, find harmony and decide when to begin our journey of healing.