Author: Maria Connolly

25 Ways to Spot Negative Thinking in Yourself

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Positive Mindset.

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” ~ Wayne Dyer

Are you a “glass half full” or the “glass half empty” kind of person? People tend to look at life situations one way or the other. We all know it’s exactly the same glass – the difference is how you view it.

It’s not always easy to tell when negative thinking is taking over. Sometimes we convince ourselves that we’re being “realistic” rather than negative. Or we’re so used to negative thoughts we think they’re normal and we don’t recognize the impact they’re having on our life.

The following list is compiled to help you make an honest self-examination. (If you feel yourself getting defensive, it’s a good indicator that you have some work to do, which wouldn’t be surprising since today’s society is saturated with negativity.) This list is not intended to make you feel “less than” anyone else, but rather to spark keener self-awareness.

You default to worrying, fear, and are always on the lookout for bad news.
You don’t reveal much information about yourself, because it “could be used against you”.
You love retelling bad news in great detail and you put a negative spin on good news.
You have thin skin, viewing innocent comments as condescending, rude, or offensive.
You whine and complain a lot and use the word “but” often.
You’re afraid to try anything new that’s outside your comfort zone.
You hate getting out of bed because you don’t want to deal with life.
You magnify anything that goes wrong until it’s dramatically tragic.
You immediately list the reasons why a new opportunity won’t work.
You hold back from taking part in activities because you’re too _____ (fill in the blank with what you perceive to be a fault).
You talk badly about yourself.
You can’t accept compliments.
You assume something isn’t available, without even inquiring about it.
You move to a new place, and everyone is “judgmental and mean”.
You go on a vacation and its “ruined” by the weather.
You delight in reciting what went wrong when you tried something new.
You’re a victim – everyone else lives a charmed life where nothing bad happens to them like it does to you.
You know that if something bad is going to happen, it’s going to happen to you.
You tell everyone else how to live, but your own life needs sorted out.
You find yourself running away from pain instead of toward pleasure.
You don’t really know what you like, but you definitely know what you don’t like.
You think other people are out to get you, and you jump to conclusions.
You are an underachiever because you’re afraid of failing.
You give up easily.
You’re not excited about the future.

After reviewing this list, are you seeing that in some ways you tend toward negative thinking? You get out of life what you put into it. And a positive attitude is the main ingredient for a successful life.

Becoming a positive person takes effort, but it can be done. The first step is being willing to see that you’ve become a negative-minded person. (I don’t think you’re born that way. It’s something that you’ve learned, which means you can unlearn it.) This requires that you create a constant mindful awareness of your mental attitude. This often takes support to remind you of the positive things in your life. I’d be happy to partner with you. I recommend you take advantage on my Individual Somatic Coaching.

Stay tuned – in future blogs, we’ll discuss how to turn this negativity around. In the meantime, make sure you take the 7-Point Body Wellness Assessment, as it will help you pinpoint areas that being more positive will make you healthier and happier. Click here to download your free copy.

Starting Your Own Private Practice? Five Things You Should Know…

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Private Practice Advice.

Does starting your own private practice appeal to you? This can be a big transition for therapists, counselors, social workers, life coaches etc. But maybe you’re tired of the 9-5 job or you want more freedom to spend time on what’s really important to you. If so, there are some things that you should consider first so the transition to being an entrepreneur is easier and less stressful.

While it may seem tempting, it’s not wise to hand in your resignation without first having your new business up and running. And it’s not enough to build your business around something that you’re passionate about. Your new business must fit into what supports the kind of life you want for yourself and your family. It’s important to know that you can really make a living at your new business.

Consider the following questions before starting your own private practice:

What kind of life do you really want to live? A day-to-day existence isn’t enough. Life is meant to be enjoyed to the full! Now is the time to mindfully reflect on what it is that you really want and the values you hold dear. What personal goals have you been putting off? What do you want your life to look like 5, 10, 15 years from now? How do you want to renew your purpose in life? What are you going to do when you start to feel stuck?

How will you finance the new business? Starting a business on credit card debt is very stressful for you and your family. Start saving 20-40% out of each paycheck. Within a year, you’ll be in a good financial position to start your own business. During this time, learn to live on a budget and eliminate as much debt as possible. Put yourself into a position where you can live without a paycheck for a year, plus have extra for an emergency fund.

What’s your business plan? What’s your big picture dream for starting your own private practice? This is the time to fill notebooks full of all your ideas. What services or products will you offer? How will you deliver them? What does the sales process look like? How much money do you need to make monthly? Annually? How many sales do you have to make to fulfill that goal? Will you have employees, partners, sponsors, investors, etc? Where will your office be? What will your website look like? Which social media platforms will you find your clients on? How will you keep track of everything? A good online resource for getting started is enloop.com.

Who will buy from you and why will they want to? A business isn’t a business unless you have clients or customers. Start telling everyone that you’re starting your own private practice. Tell your friends, family, and acquaintances. Ask them if they would be interested in becoming a client or if they know of anyone who would be interested.

One of the biggest hurdles is narrowing down to a niche or audience that will really buy from you. If you try to appeal to everyone…you’ll appeal to no one. So don’t be afraid to be very specific about who you want to work with. It’s important to create a very clear marketing message of who you serve and what value you bring to them.

What kind of learning curve are you up against? There’s a lot involved in starting your own private practice. It’s time to assess what skills you have and what you still need to learn. Do you need further training in NLP? Do you need more computer skills? How about business finance and operational skills? What about marketing skills? Learn as much as you can now, because once you start your own business, you’re going to be really busy.

I enjoy helping fellow practitioners who are eager to build their own business, integrating personal excellence, core values and originality. If you could benefit from some one-on-one coaching, contact me and we can discuss your options.

To give you a super solid foundation for starting your own private practice, I also want to invite you to attend Institute for Professional Leadership fall class, Creating Your Dream Practice. As one of the instructors, I can personally guarantee you’ll walk away with a compelling business vision, clarity on your unique business identity, and a better understanding of your relationship with money and marketing. Feel free to contact me and ask any questions you might have.

Rewrite Your Story and Gain Independence from Your Past Self

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Change Your Life, Handling Change.

Do you really want to improve the quality of your life and the lives of those around you? If you do, it’s going to require serious effort to become a better version of yourself. It doesn’t work to keep living the same old stories you’ve been telling yourself for years.

What do I mean by telling yourself stories?

Every day we change for the better or worse. Over time a person can become so beaten down that they lose all self-confidence and start telling themselves that they’re stupid and they don’t deserve any better. It’s just a story, but they believe it and act in accord with it! On the other hand, shy, introverted people can build confidence and become world leaders by telling themselves that they have something remarkable to share with the world. And because they believe it, they actually do it.

As you can see, your story is formed by how you view yourself and how you react to the world around you. It’s very empowering to realize that you are the ultimate storyteller of your life and you can rewrite your story at anytime. Even if you’ve heard negative and limiting things your whole life, you don’t have to believe them.

How do you gain independence from your past self?

Recognizing that there are things you want to change about yourself is the first step. This discontent with self will start you on the path to becoming a new person. It won’t matter who you were yesterday. Do your best as you mindfully live in the present moment.

Yes, this is easier said than done. We all tend to bring self-imposed limitations of yesterday into today. That’s what keeps us stuck. So how do we break free?

Here are three steps to gaining independence from your past self…

Create a burning desire to change by understanding your “why”. You may want to exercise daily, write a book, or start a business, but until you know “why” it’s so important to you, you won’t have the motivation to make it happen.

Envision exactly what your life will become. Start planning. How will each day be different? In great detail, list the ways your life will be better tomorrow and five years down the road. It works a lot better to set intentions as you move toward these goals. Once you get the ball rolling, you’ll create momentum. Each day you’ll like yourself better. Even if you stumble or fall back into old patterns, you’ll be able to pick yourself up and keep going, because you’ve had a taste of becoming the person you want to be and you’ll see it, not as a failure, but as a learning experience.

Rewrite your story. Start living the life you want. Trade in your jeans for the dress slacks that make you feel like a professional businessperson. Treat yourself to a monthly massage. Eat healthier. Get up earlier and enjoy more productivity. Speak positively of others and of yourself, not allowing any negativity to enter your story. Step by step, create the life that you want. Believe you can and you will achieve the progress you desire. Because you’re really enjoying the improvements in your life, you’ll look for ways to continue on. Your new story will work for you, because it’s in alignment with your desires and actions.

Don’t allow a moment, a situation, or an experience to define who you are. You may have a moment of depression, anxiety, or anger. But that’s not who you are. You have the power to identify what triggers those emotions and you get to choose how to deal with those emotions. Take my 7-Point Body Wellness Assessment to see areas in your life where you want to rewrite your story to become the best you possible. Click here to download your free copy.

Strong Convictions – The Secret to Becoming an Influential Leader in Your Community

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Embodied Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Life Coaching, Life Skills, Private Practice Advice.

“A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.” ~ Ralph Lauren

Have you ever eaten a dish of food that was ho-hum and boring, and then someone adds a secret ingredient that really gives it a zing of excellence? In life and business, the secret ingredient that gives you a zing and makes you stand out are strong convictions.

When you’re strongly convinced that what you do and say matter and that what you offer is of great value to others, your energy shifts and you become more attractive and persuasive. The people you work with feel more at ease. It engenders a feeling of security. It helps everyone concentrate on doing their best work, because they see that everything is under control.

In contrast, uncertainty – the opposite of conviction –is perceived by the brain as a threat. It actually causes a release of the stress hormone cortisol, which disrupts your memory, and puts your physical, emotional and mental health at risk.

How can you model strong convictions in your leadership without alienating others? If you lack conviction, you can gain it through introspection and self-awareness. If you already have strong convictions, you can learn to express them in a pleasantly persuasive and compelling manner. As you read the following section, give yourself a rating on the scale of 1 to 10 for each one, so as to determine your strengths and weaknesses.

“The Seven B’s of Strong Convictions” that will make your leadership skills outstanding:

Be informed. Know your topic forwards and backwards. When you have an excellent grasp of a subject, you can be absolutely convinced that you’ve chosen the best course of action. You can effectively apply what you know about the subject to real life situations.

Be strong. Make a stand for what you believe to be important and you won’t be swayed by everything that comes along. Use your strength for the good of others. Have the courage to make difficult decisions, take responsibility and do what’s best for the people you’re leading. This means you don’t give up when the going gets tough. You’re willing to take the bullet for your people. You back them up, never shifting blame. Leaders with true conviction are able to encourage others to openly speak up and share their viewpoints even if what they say is hard to hear.

Be tuned-in to your intuition. Your intuition or “gut instincts” are like a sixth sense where you quickly read a situation because you recognize subtle cues. It’s not the same as jumping to conclusions. Rather it takes time and mindful effort to increase your emotional intelligence. Once you learn to identify when you’re being influenced by unfounded assumptions or unresolved emotions stemming from unrelated experiences, you can filter these out. Then you’ll be able to trust your intuition and stop second guessing yourself or playing the “what if” game.

Be positive. See the good in everyone and everything, even in difficult times. Positive thinking gives your brain a chance to focus on stress-free thoughts, quieting fears and irrational thinking. Learn to choose a positive state, and you’ll be amazed at how it boosts your energy level.

Be passionate. Believe in yourself. Believe in your ability to make things happen. Of course, realistically we all have limitations. But the trick is not to accept any limitation without constantly testing their boundaries. Maybe you can’t do it today, but with training, increased knowledge and experience you can do it tomorrow. Don’t give up on your dream.

Be humble. Jump in and do the dirty work when it’s needed. Only ask your followers to do what you’re willing to do. Support, inspire and encourage those around you. Through your actions, prove that you walk the talk, never adopting the “do as I say, not as I do” attitude.

Be friends with change. Change is not your enemy. It’s natural to want to feel in control rather than being at the mercy of what life throws at you. Life happens. It’s not a personal failure when you can’t control what happens. However, how your react to it is totally within your control. Focus on that.

When you act with conviction, everyone around you unconsciously absorbs this belief and emotional state. Whether you’re leading a team at work, or you want to increase your self-confidence and grow as a person, or even if you want to be a better role model for your children, conviction is essential to your success. It creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Get a jumpstart on fine-tuning your conviction by attending our special talk: Choose Life Enhancing Beliefs on Thursday, August 25th. Nando Raynolds and I will be meeting with you at 600 Siskiyou, Ashland, Oregon to share how NLP can expand your abilities for happiness and excellence. Learn more about it by clicking here or contact me for more details. We’re looking forward to seeing you there.

How to Deal with Change: Discover the 3 Stages of Change and What They Say about You

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Handling Change.

“The only thing that is constant is change.” ~ Greek philosopher, Heraclitus

Life is full of uncertainty and change. And really isn’t that a good thing? Wouldn’t you get tired of the exact same thing day after day after day…? If you’ve learned how to deal with change, your attitude, your outlook, your abilities to function in the real world will provide the basis for building a successful and happy life despite what happens.

However, major problems arise if you haven’t learned how to deal with change effectively. If you haven’t been given the tools to see life as it really is, you’ll be living with fantasies that paralyze you. And if you don’t know how to mindfully choose your state of being, you’ll never see the full potential for what could be possible for your life.

Of course, it’s natural to resist change at first. We all do it, especially when we feel fearful and unsafe. At other times, we may get stuck in the second stage of change – falling into a rut, merely existing, keeping the status quo, not rocking the boat as we maintain the life we have. I believe that the best way to live is the third stage of change –when we lean in and embrace it as we see the life we’ve envisioned unfold.

So how do you deal with change? Of these three stages of change, which do you stay in the longest – resistance, maintenance, or embracing a larger vision? Not sure? How do you react to the following statements?

I know how to deal with change because:

I’m prepared to adapt to whatever comes, instead of wishing life was different.
I see opportunities rather than challenges or roadblocks.
I choose to focus on the positive instead of dwelling on the negative.
I see what’s really there not making things more complicated than they need to be.
I trust that I’m capable of handling whatever comes.
I give myself permission to “fail” and try again until I get it right.
I forgive myself readily, instead of beating myself up.
I confidently move on from mistakes without doubting myself.
I see when something isn’t working and adjust.

Do you see yourself in this list? Excellent! Then you’re on your way to mastering change. If, at present, you can’t own all of these as your truth, don’t despair. You can learn how to keep your sense of humor and gain a better life through change.

A surprisingly simply way to do this is to read my ultimate favorite book: “Who Moved My Cheese – An A-Mazing Way to Deal with Change In Your Work and In Your Life” by Spencer Johnson, M.D. It’s a simple story that uses metaphors, but how you interpret it and apply it to your own life gives it the greatest value. It’s a story of two mice – Sniff, Scurry – and two Little People – Hem, Haw – who find their way through a maze to get to the cheese – what you want in life.

Some of the lessons you’ll learn about how to deal with change are:

“Change Happens

They Moved the Cheese

Anticipate Change

Get Ready for the Cheese to Move

Monitor Change

Smell the Cheese Often so You Know When It’s Getting Old

Adapt To Change Quickly

The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, the Sooner You Can Enjoy New Cheese

Change

Move with the Cheese

Enjoy Change

Savor the Adventure and Enjoy the Taste of New Cheese

Be Ready To Change Quickly and Enjoy It Again

They Keep Moving the Cheese.”

You’ll see that ATTITUDE is everything! Every time you make mindful choices that supports the lifestyle you envision for yourself, you’re taking back the control you need. Each success empowers you to go on to the next with confidence. If you want more “cheese” in your life and need to learn how to deal with change more effectively, give me a call and we can set up an appointment in person or via Skype so I can help you “read the writing on the wall” as you progress to the next chapter in our life.