Visualisation is a way to find out how to change your life

You are fed up with the way your life is but however much you try you can’t seem to make the changes you want. What can you do to kick-start what you must do to change your life for the better?

It’s all about mind-set. You have to get into the right frame of mind to be accept first that change is possible and secondly that you are capable to do what it is you need to do.

One of the most important tools to use is visualisation: that is paining a picture in your mind’s eye of  life as you would like it to be.  You will make the picture in your mind very clear with bright colours and with the sounds there too.

In that picture you can not only see yourself  living the life you want but also see  the way you  are different from the way you are today.  When you visit your future self in your visualisation you  notice how you behave, how you are dressed, how you relate to others,  what you say and what you do.  Then you can bring that information back to your present self and choose some aspect of it that you can bring into your life today.

How can you do this?  Start by sitting in a comfortable seat in a quiet place, closing your eyes and breathing slowly.   As you do think about each part of your body from feet to head and as you concentrate on each part breathe out any tension you have there and breathe in relaxation. When your whole body is feeling very relaxed  picture yourself floating down a wide staircase  and with each step you go down say the words ‘down’ in your head. When you reach the bottom of the stairs imagine arriving at a place you love which includes the way you would like your life to be. There you can observe the features as suggested and then when you are ready take yourself back up the staircase ‘up’ for each step and come back to the present. Open your eyes and stretch and take a notebook to write about what you found out about yourself and your desired life. Discover more ways to  a new you here.

When you get your mindset right and become really clear about what you want and how life will be when you have achieved  you can truly become a new you!

10 great ways to reduce the effects of stress

Often the first step to reducing your stress is realising that you have some control over your stressors. You might find that it’s useful to have the support of a life coach for a few sessions to enable you to  reduce the effects of stress in the ways suggested.

A life coach is similar but different from a counsellor or therapist. You will be encouraged to look forward  and discover ways to  set and achieve the goals you want for your life. Many life coaches work with their clients on the telephone rather than face to face and charge  fees for their services.

The sort of things you could work on with a life coach to reduce the effects of stress:

1. Get your life more balanced: don’t spend most of your days working, life outside  is as important. Start to say ‘no’ when asked to do extra  work especially if it is outside  your normal working hours
2. Be more organised: tidy your work space; tidy your cupboards at home and notice how much less stressed you feel when you know where to find things.
3. Clear clutter: don’t hoard stuff just in case you might need it someday. Throw stuff away if you haven’t needed it for several years or if it’s broken or out of date.
4. Get help: when you feel you have too much to do ask someone or pay for help lighten your load.
5. Delegate: some things could be done regularly by someone else as a favour or for payment. Explain clearly what you want and how you want it done and leave them to get on with it and you to get on with something else.
6. Stop doing what doesn’t have to be done: Step back and ask yourself why you are doing some things. Maybe there is no longer any reason they have just become habits and need to be stopped.
7. Look after your body: when you eat healthy fresh food without additives or sugar and keep to low fat then you will feel much less stressed. Not only food but stop abusing your body with tobacco or alcohol and keep it flexible with regular exercise.
8. Look after your  mind by keeping up to date, reading as a way to relax and learning new things  and doing puzzles to keep your brain active. You will notice how this reduces your stress too.
9. Look after your spirit by being in nature each day; watching the sunrise or the stars; or connecting with your spirituality with formal or informal religion.
10. Keep in touch with friends and family: love them or hate them, they say blood is thicker than water and  keeping in touch in some way can be helpful to lower your stress. You have to find the amount of contact right for you because for some families this has the opposite effect. You may prefer to keep in touch with good friends instead!

If you want to find out if coaching could help you to do some or all of the above then CONTACT ME

Managing Stress