Life Coaching @Chrysalis

Two Wolves

gsutherland — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:45:43 +0000

TWO WOLVES

Here’s a nice story sent to me by a friend.
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

“One is Evil – It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

“The other is Good – It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Affirmations

gsutherland — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:47:31 +0000

My Daily Affirmations
I am thankful that my brain is active and sound
I’m grateful for all the work I have done.
I am grateful for my gifts of practicality and rationality
I acknowledge and appreciate the synchronicities in my daily life.
I acknowledge a world beyond my senses
I acknowledge a truth beyond my intellect
I acknowledge a power beyond my limits
I seek community with others on my path.
I embrace the givens of life
I open myself to every transformation
I respect the right of others to reject my path.
I celebrate my powers and passions.
I drop the need for certainty.
I am comfortable with mystery and ambiguity.
I let go of fear and live by love and choice.
I keep finding an inner source of strength and comfort in and beyond my soul.
My only search is for that which is always and already all of ours

Why choose me as your coach?

gsutherland — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:54:02 +0000

Because I have the right attitude to your success…. I’m not intersted in dissecting you -only helping you to find more workable solutions and options…..
Because I embrace change in my own life. I think about it, plan for it and take the necessary action to achieve what I want and I can show you how to do the same……
Because one of my main strengths is being able to sort through the clutter and find the best route ….

Purpose is effortless

gsutherland — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:51:11 +0000

“There’s not a man born whose work was not born with him”
Are you looking for a greater sense of purpose in your life? Have you already found it or is your sense of purpose emerging slowly? Whether its related to something ‘grand’ or whether you find it in something very humble and ordinary in the world’s eyes but one thing is certain— You won’t have to look outside of yourself for whatever you think is missing because you’ll already have everything you need. Purpose is soul-centred and related to the whole. It feeds, energises, and when it succeeds it grows. In short, it fits. On the other hand when you’re engaged in something contrary to purpose you can end up feeling depleted of energy and stressed.
What is your unique contribution to this world? How can you reflect your own true, distinctive nature? How can you truly serve others with that which is yours to supply?
It’s interesting that people who report that they feel engaged in their purpose say that time flows faster than normal. When you’re in the zone, it seems you get lost in things. You feel congruent, or in harmony with yourself, energized, in the flow! When I’ve spoken to people who are engaged in their true passion, (including my nephew -a composer) they all say the same thing—that they have a great sense of equanimity and peace; both a sense of self and no sense of self, in time and out of time—you are at once yourself and yet you have also gone beyond yourself. Time flies when you’re having fun. In fact, it can all but disappear!
Effortless Flow
Athletes call this state of effortless flow being ‘in the zone’, others call it ‘excellence’ or ‘mastery’. Sports Coach Coco Wellington describes it like this:
“Golfers feel like they are one with the club, the ball and the hole. The club is one with the body. Basketball players feel merged with the basketball so when they shoot the arc of the ball is like an extension of their body and mind. Lacrosse players feel like the stick and the ball are one with the arm and the body. A golfer will feel the club and the ball an extension of the mind and the body. All works as one.”
Wayne Dyer talks about the difference between motivation and inspiration thus:
“Motivation is when you get hold of an idea and you won’t let go of it until you make it a reality. Inspiration is the reverse. When an idea gets hold of you and you feel compelled to let that impulse or energy carry you along. You get to a point where you realize that you’re no longer in charge, that there’s a driving force inside you that can’t be stopped.”
That’s the Zone!! Have you been there? What were you doing at the time? It’s important to remember because likely that it’s something you should be doing more often.
Keep in mind the idea of ‘effortless flow’. If a great deal of effort, or struggle, or any suffering is involved, it’s unlikely that you are ‘in the zone’. Your particular sense of purpose should fit you like a glove—possibly it’s something that you’ve always done or enjoyed doing, something you can’t help yourself doing! It is not without some embarrassment that I can admit to practically forcing my younger sister into a small school chair in our front porch, as I, poised before a chalkboard and easel, taught her all she needed to know for life. Plus ça change!
It’s so easy to fall into the trap of conforming to someone else’s image of who we ought to be; to the expectations of parents and teachers who want to fit us into slots according to our perceived ‘strengths.’ “Look at these grades – you should do ‘this’ or ‘that’ – you are obviously good at it.” And, driven by fear or a lack of self-awareness, we capitulate, and may spend years wearing a false face. Your purpose should reflect your true nature
Writer and teacher, Parker J Palmer in his moving book, “Let Your Life Speak”, observes that vocation is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received. He warns us that we are sometimes in too much of a hurry to impose our own will on our lives without first having the wisdom to listen to life.
“Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen out for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values your represent.”
In so many jobs today, we are asked to leave our wholeness at the door, as if our more intuitive soulful side were irrelevant. It’s living inauthentically like this that makes our jobs so soul-destroying. If we can’t bring all of ourselves to work, is it worth the effort?
If you have been driven to follow a wrong road, if you’re suffering or struggling with something that takes up your time, then it’s unlikely to be your true purpose. We’ve all seen evidence of would-be pop stars, for example, sure that fame is just around the corner if only someone will recognize their ‘obvious’ talent. Your talent may be obvious to you, but it also has to be tempered with a sense of reality. You can miss your sense of purpose, time and time again, by focusing on what ‘should be’ rather than focusing on what ‘is’ right for you. Wishful thinking is all very well, but you need to take account of feedback from your environment. Wanting something badly, without the accompanying talent needed to make your dream come true, can leave a person very disappointed.
Finding your purpose is about more than wishing, more than hoping and dreaming that one day you’ll wake up and know what you’re here to do. Of course it’s important to dream and to play with possibilities. The odd time in someone’s life, something wonderful happens but, more often than not, we have to take action to make the dreams come true. When Edison said that his success was due to 99 percent application and one percent inspiration, he was making the point that excellence is the result of hard work and not wishful thinking.

Synchronicity

gsutherland — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:10:07 +0000

Chrysalis Life Coaching

You may never have heard of the concept of synchronicity (meaningful co-incidence) or if you have, wonder whether or not it is a real or merely imagined phenomenon. On the other hand, if you are more intuitively aware, you may have directly experienced synchronicities or noticed that the number of synchronicities in your life have increased.
Living as we do in our extremely rational and scientific world view, when faced with experiences that seem to defy logic we tend to dismiss what isn’t immediately verifiable as mere co-incidence or chance. It is easy for us to be consciously aware of the things around us –what we can see or touch, but we seem to have difficulty in sustaining sensitivity to things we can’t see, but nonetheless sense intuitively. One is socially acceptable, the other disregarded as illogical.
But synchronicity was a term first used by Carl Jung to describe improbable or ‘chance’ co-incidences that couldn’t be explained by the normal law of cause and effect. Jung felt that when no causal connection could be demonstrated between two events, but where, nonetheless, a meaningful relationship existed between them, then the governing principle of synchronicity was likely to be operating.
Jung provided numerous examples of synchronicity from his own psychiatric case-studies but one in particular has become legendary. The woman in analysis with Jung at the time was super–rational, and so up to the point of the story, somewhat resistant to therapy.
“A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me his dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to the golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetoaia urata) which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since, and that the dream of the patient has remained unique in my experience.”
The scarab’s appearance, according to Jung, had no determinable cause, but he also noted that the disturbance prefigured a profound transformation in the woman. Jung’s patient had, until the appearance of the beetle shown excessive rationality, remaining ‘psychologically’ inaccessible. Once presented with the scarab, however, it was like she wakened up and their sessions together grew more profitable.
The origins of the word are interesting. Greek root syn means ‘joined with’ and chronos means ‘time’ -and so it can be used to describe events which are connected in a timely way. A typical result of synchronicity is that you see with clarity how two hitherto unrelated events are clearly correlated in a kind of hidden pattern of connection; a pattern which cannot be influenced and which becomes clear when the time right though not a second before! In a synchronous moment the line is blurred between the future and the past, between linear time and timelessness, what has happened and what is about to happen.
The synchronicities that have occurred in my own life have tended to confirm my path of destiny. They are always in context of the bigger picture, of other significant things going on in my life. They can be beautifully simple and yet I’m knocked out by their finesse. They’re a way of getting me to pay attention to the insights and mysteries of life; a way of making me sensitive to the energy and wisdom of my soul as it gradually guides me to the answers that I need.
What about you? What is your metaphor for life? Are you, like Jung’s scarab lady, that super-rational being who is bound by the laws of cause and effect? Do you tend only to notice what can be measured, seen or touched? Are you fixed in your beliefs about what is possible and what is not in this world? Or are you willing to suspend disbelief, be more open to the nudgings and promptings from psyche / soul as you journey towards the wholeness state?

Do You accept yourself?

gsutherland — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:01:25 +0000

Do you accept yourself unconditionally?
If you already happy with who you are and who you’re becoming, then I congratulate you. You have no idea how special you are. For it seems the world is full of people, many of whom are perfectly average, normal human-beings who loathe themselves with a vengeance. If you are one of them, you will have amassed a wide selection of beliefs—some useful, others useless—based on the feelings, opinions, biases, prejudices, values and politics of other people, many of whom influenced your formative years. n.b. it’s fair to say that most parents/families are doing the best they can at the time. They don’t deliberately set out to mess you up—when we know better, we do better. Unless you had remarkable parents, who fed you enabling beliefs about your power and potential all the time, you will have a certain amount of baggage to deal with in the beliefs department. If you’ve been lucky enough to have been loved without strings then you’re one of the lucky few. Unfortunately, most of us are not loved in that way. There are always conditions, no matter how slight. The more conditions are attached to love, the more damage is done. As a result of having been loved ‘partially’, the self becomes fragmented, rejecting the parts that have not been loved then self-destructive behaviours follow.
But given that none of us have had a perfect upbringing, it could be argued that there is a certain amount of dysfunction in even the soundest of homes and that, at some point, all of us will have unresolved issues relating to self-esteem somewhere along the line. So blaming your background is kind of futile. We get what we get. We can’t change the past. It’s over and done with. The pity is that, by obsessing about what we’ve missed out on in the past, we can’t be happy in the present. If we want to make a difference here and now, today, in how we shape the future, then we have to learn to take charge of our thoughts right here and now. To do that, we must believe that we alone are in charge of our thoughts and realize that it’s our thoughts that directly determine our reality. Since we’re the ones most in control, we’re also the ones most responsible for our thoughts, feelings, and actions, no matter how much we like to blame other people or externals for how we feel.
Right . So where does that leave us? Well as I see it, the choice is simple. It amounts to this. You can either place the locus of control in the hands of others –which means you will inevitably be controlled by their thoughts , emotions and actions because when you look to others for validation,you give away our own power. Your self-worth is based upon their opinion of you and how you should live your life.
Or you can develop your own assertiveness muscles and claim your own power back which is the only way to lasting self worth.
Self-worth is not the same as self-importance. I’m not talking about parading your achievements in front of other people or making a show out of your talents or any kind of self-inflation. What I am talking about is a healthy acceptance of your value and worth—just the way you are right now—without the need to compare or judge yourself as ‘better than’ or ‘worse than’, without the need to hide behind a mask or hide behind others’ expectations of who you should be. When you don’t know who you are, or when you’re afraid to be who you are, you betray yourself. You pretend to be who you think you are. Your whole self-image, then, is made up of trying to match other people’s expectations of who you should be!
Coach Fiona Harrold writes: “Self importance is very different to self worth. Self importance is what insecure people hide behind in an attempt to convince others that they matter.”
You will know when you are in the presence of someone who is self-important because most of their energy will be going into convincing you of their worth. You will probably not be able to get a word in edgewise as they bombard you with the latest litany of their achievements and successes! Fiona goes on to remind us that: “Real power comes from self reliance and those who have this strong internal power stand out from others. It gives them the freedom to live as they please.”
Like Fiona, I believe that real power has nothing to do with status or rank or wealth or importance but is determined by how attuned you are to aspects of yourself and to the needs of others. That’s why I believe that the best way to feeling good about your life is to contribute yourself fully to it (as I say in the article about strengths) Find out your strengths and give them back to the world unconditionally. Find out what makes you happy and do more of it! Develop your charisma and with it your attractiveness quotient.

What do you put your faith in?

gsutherland — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 09:30:29 +0000

What Do You Put Your Faith In?
Fate? The Law? Yourself? Science?
Whatever it is, it had better hold you up when you need it most!
When it comes to choosing your belief system, you might think that, as long as it leads to right thinking and civilised behaviour, it doesn’t actually matter what you believe in. Well, I wouldn’t advocate believing in anything that doesn’t do those things, but if that’s all there is then it’s not enough for me.
The conditions of life require more. Fact of life. Life can throw some unwelcome changes at you from time to time, which can’t always be solved by civilised behaviour and right thinking. Good things come to an end. Sometimes your plans will go horribly wrong. Sometimes you will be taken to the limits of your sanity. Sometimes you will be taken beyond the limits. It seems we are constantly renewing ourselves and changing in the light of new experience and ‘the givens of life’ -all the stuff that really tests us-seem to be both the product of and the price of growth.
For me then, It means having faith in God – albeit a God that is utimately mystery. Some people think having faith in God is the easy route. But I am not interested in a belief system that will confirm my subjective views or my pre-conceived notions about life—where would be the growth in that? That kind of belief that hinders growth. I am not after a reality that avoids the hard questions or is satisfied with platitudes and certainties for we should always retain the right to question the authority of those in power in the interests of self realisation.
What I am interested in the kind of faith that is closer to an unreserved opening of the mind, the acceptance of truth no matter what it turns out to be- a plunge into the unknown if you like. I want to be moved out of my comfort zone—I want something that might make demands on me that conflict with my ego’s demands, something I find mysterious and puzzling. I want something that fully reflects my life in all its shades and hues. I want to be taken beyond myself. Part of the growth may be to share in the inevitable and existential despair of living and moments of great doubt (for paradoxically without doubt there can be no faith) If I go for anything less than that, it’s a cop out. I am not standing up to my full height.
But what happens when you face up to, rather than run away from the many difficult realities of life with faith, is that you come through the times of doubt with increasing hope! Though comfort and ease are very nice, they are the result of the work, not the work itself.
Victor Frankl wrote:
“What man actually needs is not some tensionless state, but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”

Follow your Bliss
The vital questions ‘Where am I going?’, ‘What do I believe in?’ and ‘Why do I exist?’ are fundamental to the human condition and have absorbed every generation. The search is fundamental simply because the search for self and search for God are one and the same.
“Ask, and it shall be given to you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7
Buddha found enlightenment when he stopped looking, but we might also conclude that it was his many years of searching that prepared him for it!
When anthropologist and philosopher Joseph Campbell first urged his students to follow their bliss, he no doubt suspected that those who followed the path would eventually find it. On their way to recognising bliss, he knew that they would meet challenge and obstacle, universal truth and universal lie. The key to Campbell’s urge is in discovering what your true bliss really is by finding out what it is not. The only way you can find that out is to have an idea where you might find it. You won’t find a polar bear in the Sahara desert, for example. You won’t find one in the South Pole either, though you might hang about there for a long time thinking that it looks a likely habitat.
If we imagine bliss to be the satisfaction of our day-to-day desires, ambitions and wants, we may sooner or later discover that such trivial goals do not bring any lasting sense of satisfaction. We outgrow them as we outgrow the body. But, until then, we are compelled to go after bliss, whatever it is, live life to the full and enjoy every moment. We are each of us called to carve out our own trail, to chart our own path, not anyone else’s.

Helpful Psychometric Tools

gsutherland — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:45:07 +0000

Personality Indicators
Amongst the many helpful psychometric tools that coaches use to help people to know themselves are personality indicators. Two of the most widely-used tools in business training, education and coaching, are the The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and, increasingly, The Enneagram.
Personality-type indicators can be very useful in allowing us to understand where our energy comes from, how we prefer to operate, how we are prone to make decisions and where our growth points might be. They are not supposed to be 100 per cent reliable in guiding us to make life decisions. They do exactly what the name suggests; they give us indications of our personality type. They cannot be 100 per cent accurate because people change over time according to their own life experiences. The emphasis of these indicators is on self-discovery rather than a method of putting people in boxes or using them as a justification for, perhaps inappropriate, behaviour.
The MBTI , first developed by Isabel Myers and her mother, Katharine Briggs, is based on Jungian psychology. MBTI profiles are used in business to help people understand and play to their strengths and to develop their weak areas. They’re also used to evaluate team dynamics in the workplace. Many of these tests can be taken free on-line.
The Enneagram is character-typing tool which divides personality into nine distinctly different worldviews with their corresponding energies and core values. Since we are all unique, the prospect of forcing people to fit into boxes might not sit well with you, but fundamental to the teaching of the Enneagram is the idea of movement along the lines and around the circle. As with life, we don’t stay at a fixed point. We actively participate in this movement by manifesting and experiencing the characteristics of other Enneagram personality types. So, in effect, it may seem, from time to time, that we have become another personality type. Type 1 goes to 4 or 7, for example, depending on its state of mental health. Movement around the Enneagram is partly a process of seeking an understanding of what can, and can’t be changed about ourselves—a search for inner harmony and balance, integration and wholeness.
There are now a number of books and websites dedicated to the Enneagram with detailed descriptions of types; free tests are available on most of them. The Enneagram Institute is full of resources
Enneagram Institute
The 9 points are drawn in the shape of a star within a circle so that each point is of equal distance from the centre. Each type has positive and negative traits, indicating that no one point is better or worse than another. Do you identify strongly with one of the following words?

• Reformer – principled and orderly, but has tendencies to be perfectionist and punitive
• Helper – altruistic and caring, but can also be possessive and manipulative
• Competitor – self-assured and popular, but can also be narcissistic and hostile
• Artist – creative and intuitive, but has tendencies to depression and self absorption
• Thinker – perceptive and analytical, but can also be eccentric and paranoid
• Loyalist – dutiful and dependable, but can also be untrusting and masochistic
• Generalist – accomplished and multi-talented, but can be manic and prone to addictions
• Leader – self-confident and courageous, but can be ruthless and dictatorial
• Peacemaker – calm and reassuring, but can be passive and neglectful

Writing/journalling is another useful way of getting in touch with your inner world. Before you decide that the idea of journalling sounds too grand for you, remember that a journal is only a notebook of ideas. It can be as simple or as complex as you like, since it’s yours alone. It’s merely your private place to express all your inner thoughts and feelings; a way of beginning to understand yourself. You can then move closer to knowing who you are and what you want out of life. Some people fill it with quotes, facts, fantasy, ramblings, poetry, drawings, pictures and metaphors—whatever takes their fancy! Others use it as a kind of personal sounding-board—a way of getting in touch with their motivations—so you might like to write a diary with actions, re-actions, tough questions that pop up from time to time, or just with something that inspires you. Open a page, start writing and see where it takes you. The best thing is that you get to keep it to yourself. Knowing that you needn’t show it to anyone else in the world, you have the freedom to be as self-revealing as you know how.

If you’re not sure what to write about, an exercise you might try is to note your life-themes and then start writing about them. By life-themes, I ‘m not talking here about your gifts or talents. I mean the stuff that seems to keep repeating itself in your life as if trying to tell you something. For example, when we say that some people are ‘accident-prone’, believe it or not, it can literally be true. Accidents can happen so often in someone’s life that they have become a theme; they actually seem to attract accidents regularly into their lives. It is a very interesting exercise to explore your themes especially by journalling. No one else shares your themes exactly and writing about them can give you insight into why they keep cropping up. If you’re like me, whenever you are asked to generate a list of anything at all, you will immediately dry up. However, if you need help, I have appended a list of potential themes at the end of this post.
What have you learned about yourself from your themes so far?
What could you possibly still have to learn?
Another idea is to just cherish your intuitive feelings and pay attention to those pearls of wisdom that pop into your head from time. Don’t let them go to waste. Write them down somewhere. Powerful ideas are often born very quietly. The world is much more subtle than we can imagine and sometimes our intuition presents us with exactly the information we need. It can sometimes be tempting to pass over those ‘free gifts of insight’ as we get caught up in our linear thought processes, but it really is important to acknowledge the nudges and sensations that can often seem mundane.
Here are some potential themes that might make you think of more:

Accidents Dance Games Love Quiet times
Accomplishments Death Gardens Masks Risk
Adventure Desire Gifts Mentoring Security
Anger Depression Grudges Mothering Symbols
Animals Disappointments Guilt Miracles Singing
Appearance Differences Habits Mischief Sport
Art Disappointments Health Money Solitude
Bad times Dreams Hobbies Morals Travel
Beauty Duty Highs and lows Media Technology
Best times Emotions Holidays Music Tears
Beliefs Envy Houses Nature Writing
Books Ethics Hope Nurture
Business Events Humour New things
Career Exercise Ideas Nightmares
Cars Facts Ideals Order
Church Family Illness Opinions
Celebrations Fashions Image Outdoors
Changes Failures Injury Parties
Children Fears Insight Past
Collectibles Feelings Integrity Parents
Cooking Flight Intellect Passions
Colours Flowers Jobs Passing time
Competition Food Journeys Past
Computers Freedom Joy Performing
Creativity Friends Learning People
Customs Future loss Perfectionism

What are your strengths?

gsutherland — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 13:06:45 +0000

Do you know what you do best?
How do you relate best to other people? What are your natural gifts? We all have them—gifts for achieving, motivating, empathising, nurturing, supporting, producing, inspiring and for analysing and solving problems. Those of us who communicate well with words can enliven ideas with image and metaphor and so help people to understand themselves better. Those who have a talent for empathy intuitively share another perspective, hear the unvoiced questions and anticipate the unspoken needs. People who have a talent for command have no difficulty with confrontation, seeing it as the first step to resolution. The know how to take hard decisions are willing to stand up and be counted when the chips are down. Some will use their gifts to make things better, to enhance or reform society in some way; still others have the talent to produce something of lasting beauty, to touch the heart, to inspire, to help create better systems.
It’s easy to underestimate how helpful you can be. We can all be out of tune with how we help people because it comes so naturally to us that it seems like we did nothing. And, in fact, we often use those very words, ‘It was nothing’. But the next time someone thanks you for helping them, ask them what you did—‘Thanks, but how did I help? What did I just do?’ You might be surprised. It doesn’t hurt to get into the habit of asking other people how they see your strengths. But, again, it’s not normal. There is a reluctance to talk openly in everyday conversation about what we’re good at. We are too close to ourselves to have anything like a full appreciation of our unique skills and talents. We’ve been taught that self-praise is no praise, so modesty prevents us dwelling on our own strengths. If you feel uneasy about asking someone else what you’re good at, remember that you’ll be asking for the best reason in the world. It often takes the eyes of others to help us to see our strongest gifts, our creation gifts, the ones we are barely aware of possessing. And it’s not until we become fully aware of our gifts that we can make the best use of them in the world.
There are many helpful psychometric tools that coaches use to help us get to know ourselves better.
Positive psychology is the name associated with the relatively new branch of psychology that studies the strengths of fulfilled individuals in thriving communities. It offers a balance to the pathology model of psychology dominant in the later decades of the twentieth century and has been described as ‘the scientific study of optimal human functioning’ Positive psychology studies positive strengths in people such as confidence, courage, wisdom, spiritual intelligence, hope, resilience, and Gallup –who provide a variety of management consulting, human resources and statistical research services – have developed an online strengths-finder assessment tool which reflects three decades of studying successful people in systematic structured manner. The strengths-finder tool can help people discover their personal blend of talents and strong points and also show them how to apply their strengths in teams and communities.
http://www.strengthsfinder.com

Fear of failure

gsutherland — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:42:27 +0000

Fear of Failure/Success
You can’t fail to have noticed the popular culture’s obsession with potential. We are inundated with buzz words and refrains about being all we can be, just doing it, living life to the max and so on. Correspondingly our everyday lives can often feel humdrum and monotonous. We wonder how to aspire to the greatness that gurus guarantee is waiting for us.
Occasionally, motivated by the latest hype, we book a course to change our life. This time we really will get it -the penny will finally drop, we will be moved to fulfil our promise, and for some it works, but more often than not, the inspiration doesn’t last. We keep up the momentum until it fades. Initial hope is all too often beset by doubts and fears which turn to disappointment and we often find ourselves as well as our aspirations back at square one. The habit of anticipating failure can keep us chained to unproductive habits which prevent us from living healthy and unrepressed lives.
But, as well as the fear of failure, there is another deeper fear at work. Writer Marian Williamson tells us that our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate but that we are powerful beyond measure-that it’s our light and not our darkness that we’re afraid of.
“We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others”
At some level, we can all relate to these words. No matter how old we are, we secretly know that we can all amount to something much greater. The catch-phrase ‘Be all you can be’ speaks to millions because it strikes a chord. It’s not that we’re being called to something beyond our capabilities either. Each of us has different talents in differing amounts but we seem to shrink from success as though we somehow don’t deserve it.
Everybody knows by now that the messages we get in childhood can be crucial to our subsequent success in life. People who are brought up in homes and environments that crush their expectations at an early age can have great difficulty in believing that anything is possible. When we internalise these messages, they turn into beliefs and begin to shape our reality. We then become our own worst censors, letting the negative self-talk rule our life.
What do I know?
I don’t deserve this.
Everyone else is brighter/smarter/ better/than I am.
Even if we allow ourselves to believe that we can accomplish great things in our lives, we fear that we won’t have the ability to sustain that success; that our accomplishments will self-destruct at any time.
If we need to be creative in our work, we might fear that our creativity will dry up. If we need to be well-informed, we might fear that others will overtake us in the knowledge stakes. If we need to compete, we fear that our competitors will out-shine us. Sometimes procrastination is the problem. We can fear success because life, as we know it, might have to change. Some of our current freedoms or comfort zones might have to go. Success might bring things we don’t want—like the responsibility of living up to it and the need to sustain the momentum.
Partly it’s a cultural phenomenon too. When it comes to talking about achievement, many of us are afraid to let our light shine. We are aware of the uniquely British disease of Tall Poppy Syndrome. When a poppy grows too tall, we are tempted to lop off its head or cut it down to size. The popular culture has a tendency to denigrate achievement, educational or otherwise. We have the feeling that, if we dare to become successful, people will want to bring us down and so, rather than develop a healthy attitude of self-acceptance and honest appraisal of our strengths, we tend to grow afraid. We can even sabotage our success by actually making ourselves smaller than we really are to accommodate the mob! Some people can, in fact, internalise this fear in their body.
Failure is only feedback
If you’ve had an urge to go for a dream but shrink back from it because you’re afraid it won’t work out, you’ll no doubt be focused on potential ‘failure.’ How will you cope with that? Actually the answer to that is you won’t be anywhere that’s any different to where you are now. You have nothing to lose in trying. Every self-help book you will ever read will tell you the same thing—that failure is merely feedback. It’s what you do with that feedback that counts. If you care to reframe failure, it can instantly become ‘new opportunity’ or ‘new possibility’.
Looking at failure this way doesn’t happen naturally, of course, since most people see failure as failure. End of story. You have to develop the habit of seeing it as a learning opportunity. It’s also a fact that successful people have had more ‘failures’ than unsuccessful ones. Nowadays, the conventional wisdom in business, for example, is to encourage failure. The more you try to grow your knowledge in today’s marketplace, the more mistakes you will have to make. If you never fail, it’s a telltale sign that you’re not trying anything new or challenging. Much of the potential for growth out there is down to being willing to take risks—so failure is good! Go ahead – fail with finesse!!! You have my permission.
Abraham Lincoln and failure
If failure was ever a theme in anyone’s life, then we’d have to say it was a theme in the life of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. Before he was 23, Lincoln had lost 3 members of his family, nearly drowned and almost died after a horse kicked him. In the space of the next 20 years, he lost his job, was defeated for State legislature, failed in business, lost his girlfriend, was bankrupted and his son died. Before he was finally elected President in 1860, he was defeated for nomination for Vice-President, defeated for US senate, and his father died. Lincoln of course went on to be one of the most successful American Presidents in history, chose to learn from his failures rather than be labelled by them. He looked at the ups and downs of life as natural, the ebb and flow of the cosmic soup. He didn’t judge himself or his life by one setback or even a series of setbacks. Lincoln saw failure as feedback. With dogged persistence he turned disappointment into triumph. He instinctively understood that a fulfilling life was not about having more successes than failures, just more timely successes perhaps! He was the kind of person on whom nothing is lost—making the ‘failures’ instruct as much as the triumphs.
If you expect to learn without making mistakes, you’re in for a shock. Imagine a musician who never hits a wrong note or an ice-skater who never falls. It’s inconceivable. But we put off doing things because we get so hung-up about other people’s opinions when the reality is that most folk don’t really think about us very much at all! We are generally bit-parts in their lives. The choice is always yours; you can go on taking what comes to you. There is comfort in remaining ignorant; that way you don’t need to find out what might have been. But you will never win anything much unless you dare to try. The more risks you take, the better you become at taking them.
Do something that you’re not sure you’ll be able to achieve. I say ‘not sure’ , because risk should not be reckless. If you’re absolutely sure that you won’t manage something, then maybe there’s good reason for it! You probably don’t have the necessary skill for now, the necessary resources. Go for something that you think you might be able to do. If you can visualize yourself doing it, then you probably can do it. Pick something that you have doubts about achieving, but something that moves you out of your comfort zone.
What do you truly want for yourself and those dear to you?
What if there were no limits?
What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? Why not set your intentions on paper right now?