The group coaching sessions are already back in action after a break over December. Our next meetup in 21 Feb at 7pm in Victoria. If you’re interested in coming along then you’ll need to register over at http://www.meetup.com/Confidence-Building-for-Gay-Men

Places are VERY limited, so make sure you get a place by booking up quickly!

You can download and read the PDF version here, or pick up a copy from your local bar.

@lifecoach but how do I stop being a natural mystery guts and be happy?!?

11 January, 2012 19:48 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@AbandonedBear

AbandonedBear

After my last post on happiness being a choice I received this tweet. I love a challenge, and I love the typo too it makes it far more interesting.

1. Be Optimistic: The world isn’t against you, even though it feels like that sometimes. Recognise that what happened in your past doesn’t mean the future has to be the same. Instead of thinking about why things are happening to you, focus on what you are going to do to get things back on track. No one expects you to be overly positive all the time, pretending that everything is perfect. So just accept when you are having a bad day, or you’re in a crabby mood. It’s happens.
2. Trust your instincts. In a study, two groups of people were asked to pick out a poster to take home. One group were asked to analyse their decision carefully, weighing the pros and cons, and the other group were told to go with their gut reaction. Two weeks later, the group that followed their instinct were happier with their posters than the group that analysed their decisions.
3. Make enough money to meet your basic needs: food, shelter, and clothing. More importantly spend less than you earn. Material items only provide short-term happiness, where as experiences and the memory of them last a lifetime.Stay close to friends and family. By keeping a small close-knit circle of friends and family it’s easier to keep in touch. Give time to the people who will be there when you need them most, rather than “fair weather friends”.
4. Find happiness in the job you have. Many people expect the right job or the right career to dramatically change their level of happiness, but from personal experience, most of my clients that came to me with work issues ended up working them out and staying in their job, rather than moving on.
5. Smile. Whether you feel happy or not, your mood will be elevated. So smile all the time!
6. Laugh a lot. It’s fairly well known that laughing releases natural endorphins. There are even classes you can take to exercise those laughter muscles!
7. Forgive. Holding a grudge takes up a lot of time and energy. In a study, it was found that an attitude of forgiveness also contributed to better cardiovascular health.
8. Make friends who share your interests, if you don’t know any make a special effort to join a club or online forum. If none exist then create your own, chances are there are many people out there with the same interests as you.
9. Give lots of compliments. I use this one a lot in my coaching. The act of giving compliments teaches you a lot about how people react. What works well and what doesn’t. More importantly also teaches you how to receive compliments.
10. Perform acts of kindness anonymously. Just the knowledge that you did something to make someone else’s life just a little bit easier is bound to put a smile on your face.
11. Look after your health, stretch yourself physically and get plenty of sleep. A tired, sick and inactive body certainly isn’t going to do anything for your confidence, self-esteem or happiness.
12. Don’t “treat” feeling down. These treats are normally bad for you and the pleasure lasts only a few minutes. You may think that feeling better for a few minutes is good enough, but then you’ll have to deal with the guilt later, adding to your woes.
13. Do something creative. There’s nothing more satisfying than creating a drawing, doing some writing or creating something out of bits and pieces. Even if it’s not very good, it’s yours.
14. Keep a diary. Another one I use in my coaching all the time. This is a great way to externalise the annoying inner voice that likes to tell us that things won’t work out the way we want them to. By getting these worries out and down on paper, it allows your inner voice to let go and it begins to get quieter.
15. Reduce your exposure to negative news stories. The media LOVES a bad news shocker, if it’s really important your friends and family will talk about it. Get your “news” from blogs or special interest websites that you can subscribe to instead.
16. And last but certainly not least! Practice…….. practice…….. practice!

I was shopping at Ikea recently. It’s not my most favourite store in the world but it was on the way home anyway and my husband decided he wanted to pick up a few bits and pieces. We were also hungry so we decided to grab some food whilst we were in there too.

Now I’ve heard that the company is actually quite good at looking after it’s employee’s. But what really stunned me is the young woman behind the food counter serving the hot food. She snapped at me asking what I wanted, large or small serving, fries or mash. Not once did she look at me. Not once did she smile. Not once did she make any kind of effort to interact with me any more than was the minimum amount required to get me to move on.

A number of thoughts flooded through my brain at this point. What would her day be like, if she actually tried being nice to people? Would she enjoy her work more? Would she find that people were more friendly to her?

It reminded me of a fellow podcaster Auntie Vera Charles. I chat with him frequently on twitter, well we normally tease each other actually, but that’s another story altogether….

Anyway, Vera recently did a podcast where he talked about his face sagging as he gets older, so he decided to try smiling more. Just a little so that it would help tone up the muscles in his face. Great idea actually and something I would highly recommend! But what really took him by surprise was what happened to his emotional state and even the reaction of people around him. Others started to notice, even strangers commented on his happy demeanour. Just by making this tiny change in his face, he improved his inner wellbeing and this was visible to the people he met.

No one can put a gun to your head and force you to be happy, just as no one can really force you to be a misery guts. The choice to be happy is up to you.

What will you choose?

I couldn’t have said it better myself. I can’t stress enough how much effort goes in to NOT telling you want I think is the answer to their situation. It all comes down to this:-

• My solutions are based on my experience and my life, not yours, so it’s unlikely that it will really be matched to your own situation.
• Your solution is perfectly based on your own life and situation. Your own circumstances and abilities. Only you can design the perfect solution to your situation. I just help and support you until you find it.

So listen to the advice of others, read up and research your issue, but ultimately design the solution that is yours and yours alone.

What does your future have in store for you? Do you plan your future?

Are you hoping that 2012 will be a good year for you? Do you believe that you have control over what happens?

For the most part, just winging it works pretty well for most people. Going with the flow and dealing with the highs, and the lows that life throws at you.

What would happen if you decided to focus your efforts on in a particular direction?

Would you be more or less likely to actually move towards achieving things that were important to you?

Sounds silly really doesn’t it, of course if you focus on a direction, goal or dream, you are far more likely to actually move towards it. Yet most of us don’t even make the smallest effort to do it. I bet you are thinking that this is going to take FAR too much effort and won’t ever be worth it.

What if I made it SO simple that it would take no more than writing just 3 words? That’s all, nothing more, nothing less. Just three little words.

So here is the challenge, and it’s really not that big of a challenge, but that’s point. It’s meant to be so simple you just give it a go. I mean, what have you got to lose? (You can just add a word that has meaning to you, or add more if you feel it needs to makes more sense)

1. For 10 seconds and think to yourself, “Over the next year I would like to be….”. Now write that word in the comments box below.
2. For the next 10 seconds think “Over the next year I want to do more…..”. Add that word to the first.
3. Finally, for the next 10 seconds think “Over the next year I want to have….”. And of course add that to the others. Then click the submit button. 

Congratulations! You have just recorded your plan for the next 12 months!

OK, so there is a bit more to it than that, now over the next 7 days, when ever you need to decide on something use those three words to check in with yourself.

Ask yourself, “Is the choice I’m about to make going to move me towards, or away from my three words?”. Let that question and your three words be your guide, your sense of reason and avid supporter.

If you’ve read the post this far, you may as well give it a go!

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A simple list of ideas to help build your confidence:-

1. Compliment other people.
2. Accept compliments gracefully.
3. Keep fit, you don’t need the body of a god(ess) to feel good about yourself.
4. Keep a journal, it helps to calm a judgmental inner voice.
5. Recognise your insecurities, accepting them is the first step to conquering them.
6. Avoid perfectionism, good enough will do, tell yourself you can always come back to it later.
7. Take care of your appearance, then it’s one less thing to worry about.
8. Practice smiling before entering a room.
9. Learn a new skill to gently challenge you.
10. Listen to your doubts, but challenge their validity.
11. Reveal a little bit of the real you to people you meet.
12. Fear is a way of letting you know that you’re about to stretch yourself and grow.
13. Scared of looking a fool? Remember to laugh with them, so they can’t laugh at you.
14. Confidence sometimes means admitting you’re wrong.
15. Sometimes the most confident thing to do is ask for help.
16. Don’t compare yourself with others, they have a whole heap of issues you aren’t aware of and certainly wouldn’t want to swap with.
17. Being validated by someone else is not the answer to anything.
18. Being confident is a journey not a destination.
19. Seeing a task through to the end builds confidence, quitting because it was hard damages it.
20. Distract your inner fears by directing your focus on helping others.
21. Allow yourself to accept failing as a lessoned learned in the school of hard knocks. It’s the best form of education.
22. Recognise your successes, don’t be afraid to say you’re good at something especially to yourself!
23. Remember that no one is perfect, in fact most are a lot less perfect than you

READY

• I have time to invest in myself.
• I can make and keep appointments with myself to work on being coached.
• There is a gap between where I am and where I want to be.

WILLING

• I am fully willing to do the work required to get me where I want to go.
• I am willing to stop or change the self-defeating behaviours that limit my success.
• I am willing to try new things even if I am not 100% convinced they will work

ABLE

• Coaching is the appropriate discipline for the changes I want to make.
• I have the patience to take consistent action towards my goals, regardless of how immediate the results are.
• I have the support I need to make significant changes with ease.

Every once in a while he asks a very important question as his understanding increases with age. For example, a few years ago he was discussing the fact that his uncles were gay. So I asked him, what did he think about that?

“Well, it’s a bit weird”

He said, carefully thinking about the question he followed this up with

“But I’m glad, because if UP1 wasn’t gay then I wouldn’t have UP2″

I blushed, and my heart skipped a beat. I smiled at him and said ”I’m glad too”.