Change is Life. It can feel most uncomfortable and overwhelming, even painful, when our mental-emotional-physical-spiritual resources feel depleted and out of balance. When we feel disempowered to take charge of our choices. When the world is in such turmoil. What can we influence? Taking care of what we actually can do. Let us "enter" this room for improvement.
Our mindset is primarily shaped by the way we speak to ourselves, how we verbalise thoughts, describe circumstances and plans.
The words we choose. The meanings we give them.
One of the main purposes to increase Self-/Awareness is to elevate our quality of Life.
Becoming aware of the patterns in internal and external conversations, we claim the choice to find more useful and empowering ways of expressions.
We improve our mindset and corresponding attitude. We become better Leaders.
Let us see today how these conscious tools serve us to more optimally navigate Change.
Interpretation of words, events, circumstances is how we give meaning.
Once we claim the belief that we don't have to suffer by a certain negative thought loop for example, we can start choosing different actions to make changes.
Utilising empowering phrases, does not mean to become delusional and refuse taking responsibility for what we CAN change.
Even if it most often doesn't feel like it, Life events tend to be neutral. Rain, shine, a car breaking on time in front of us, someone opening the door for us, wearing new shoes, internet working all day, delivering a speech, meeting with a friend.
What we notice from these and how we interpret them will be not only individually different, but depending on the Life season we are in and our mental-emotional-physical-spiritual capacity in the moment.
When at this time we feel there are a lot of "I should"s, "I have to"s, when our mood is not balanced and usually not positive, when we feel not only physically, but mentally-emotionally tired, we can choose to stop.
In the pause we give space to Change that WE chose. We reclaim the power from external expectations and circumstance pressing upon us.
In that Self-reflecting space we can ask ourselves:
What do I want?
What do I choose to do with this situation?
What is my decision?
What would I find ideal as next steps?
This one thing: to become aware of your patterns in the words you use, replace limiting with empowering ones, can be one of the greatest accelerators in Personal Evolution.
Self-talk reveals the state of your current beliefs. Where you have Self-doubt and where you nurture a good connection to Self-belief.
It's not only the words you use, but
what meaning do you give those words?
what kind of emotions do those expressions evoke?
do they stir memories of past events?
what kind of reaction is activated by using certain words?
There are a whole world of beliefs behind our language.
We're discovering through this inner work what better choices we can make.
Observing your mental-emotional-physical reaction is really helpful to understand:
what makes you feel disempowered?
do you want to change the words, expressions or the meaning you give them?
what exhausts you and drains your energy?
what recharges you quickly and well and lifts your mood?
This practice helps you disentangle yourself from negative language-thought/emotion loops, find your positive triggers to induce Flow, soften your emotional attachment to beliefs so that you can see your patterns more clearly and change, finetune what you feed your Subconscious Mind to. That's where the impact of language lands.
The Subconscious takes things quite literally, doesn't understand humour, irony, cynicism... unawares of what information you consume and your inner speech, it can operate as a Self-limiting mechanism.
The Subconscious shapes our Self-image from which we think and act.
It is essential that we learn to create a healthy, balanced, conscious language that connects to these.
Our Evolution may happen at different speeds in parts of us.
When starting something new by choice or when Change happens in our Lives organically, we can find that certain fears, uncertainty come up and there's a strain on our Self-belief.
In unknown territory we may not have the level of Confidence and all the skills mastered yet.
That is when we shall remind ourselves of all the experiences we already have been through, all what has been accomplished. The seemingly simplest of things. To spot judgement in this process and minimise or fully release it.
Change does require from us an extra amount of nourishment in the Faith in ourselves, so that we can approach it more empowered, with a clearer Mind for better decisions.
Our need for Expansion is part of our human condition. We will seek Change, just as much as it finds us.
Having a clear Life Vision, an Inner Why as compass making choices, will fuel us in times of temporary doubt and confusion.
It can be ideas, quotes, affirmations worded in a way that we interpret as uplifting and inspiring. They will help us shift negative perspective. It can be our own internal mantras which resonate best at the time. They helps us shift back into our Growth Mindset.
Growth Mindset is probably the most helpful when we are in an especially intense Change period. We can look at it as a sort of wise warrior mindset, too.
It entails a passion for learning,
Self-belief and confidence in your own potential,
a willingness to take informed risks and face challenges,
an ability to turn obstacles into opportunity and learning,
persevering through a positive attitude,
and living in the present moment.
Which all describe the state when we are in Flow. We have a natural alignment and confidence to think, make the currently most optimal choices and act upon them.
Then again...
at times we need to look beyond our Mind and attend to our physical needs.
When our sleeping, hydration and eating patterns are off, when we haven't socially connected to anyone who usually contributes well to our mood...
Or on the contrary, we have had too much input and noise around us, running about and haven't taken time to rest in a peaceful environment...
When we only did shallow breathing all day and haven't opened the window or moved much...
We then learn how much more holistic this human experience is.
All the lacking or reduced beneficial input above contributes to stress hormones piling up and a deteriorating mood. No wonder then that we can barely think straight.
That is why I recommend and like to apply in my own practice, to check the basics:
fresh air, deep breathing, hydration, eating, moving, stretching, nourishing conversations (including a balanced, healthy Self-talk mentioned earlier), entertainment, relaxation, good, sufficient sleep.
Smallest practical actions on these can be immensely helpful. And "turn the tide".
And then, physically well, or as best it goes at the time, we can immerse in working with the Mind.
We start collecting all the things that make Life worth living for us and the planet as well.
(If it works better and that's all we have immediate capacity for, we can pick things only in our immediate surroundings for now.)
What initiatives we decide to take up, contribute to and which we witness in the world that are truly heartening and mean positive progress, even when they are not yet in mainstream attention.
Not all Change is plannable. When we know we are before an intense period, we can prepare our habits to be tweaked around it, so that we have extra internal armour for that time.
But exactly because Change is Life, we shall anyways keep optimising our habits so that we have a solid underlying resilience, paired with Growth Mindset, so we can best tackle whatever comes.
Embracing our role as Self-responsible citizens of society, as Leaders in our various expressions.
***
Change does have an imprint on us physiologically. It is not only influencing our physical condition, but those neural pathways, our "wiring" which represent our thought patterns and habits.
It is a natural part of Coaching to enable an accelerated Awareness around all of what we discussed today. In the long-run, you can further hone this Awareness via Self-Coaching: reflecting, optimising inner conversations and choices.
If you would like to deep-dive further into Self-development, here are some of the related posts I earlier published on habits, Flow and the Subconscious:
I bring all my learnings into my shares, reflection exercises, Coaching, so that my personal investments and revelations enrich not only my Life, but through my Work all your Lives too.
To explore the opportunity of working together
Reach out via message or head straight to the Coaching Session preparation form.
See you there! T.
Recommended Resources
The books I regularly recommend, which helped me in my Wayfinding and improvement.
Dr. Joe Dispenza Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One
H. García and F. Miralles Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Stephen R. Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Eckart Tolle The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Shad Helmstetter What to Say When You Talk to Your Self
Tim Ferriss The 4-Hour Workweek
Carol Dweck Mindset. Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential. This book is quoted by many others and is one of the most fundamental concept descriptions on Fixed vs. Growth Mindset and how they influence our level of Success.
Greg McKeown Essentialism. The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. About optimal energy investment for highest yield and disciplined thinking as a way of living.
James Clear Atomic Habits
BJ Fogg Tiny Habits
Charles Duhigg The Power of Habit. Why we do what we do in Life and Business. or Why we do what we do and how to change
コメント