21 Jun Capture Your Brilliance – Part 2
In the last blog, I wrote about “capturing your brilliance.” I mentioned that you might want to pay attention to the thoughts that you have going through your mind; your internal chatter. Did you take me up on my suggestion?
If yes, what did you learn about the way that you speak to yourself? What thoughts go through your mind about changing your career? Which of the thoughts support you by giving you that sense that it is possible? E.g. I am making good progress.”
“I can do this!” Which thoughts are limiting, unsupportive, sabotaging, or undermine you? E.g. “I am too old for a change?” “I can’t afford to.” “I can’t do it…” If you haven’t already done so, take some time to write them down. Let’s take a look at the thoughts that are limiting.
Whose voice is it? Is it your own or someone else’s? When we are contemplating change, starting something new, or challenging, we are moved outside of your comfort zone. This in turn can make us feel anxious about what we are doing. This may lead us to negatively self talk.
I am going to share with you some tips for soothing the negative chatter that you might sometimes experience.
Tip one
Research has shown that someone that has a lot of internal dialogue will tend hold their head at an angle with their eyes looking down. So one tip, if you find yourself engaging in a lot of self talk, is to lift your head up and focus your eyes so that you are looking above the horizontal line. Also, take a look at your physiology. Are you sitting, standing upright, or are you slouching? If you are slouching straighten your body.
Tip two
Be proactive in changing the negative thoughts into positive ones. What I mean is, you may need to make a deliberate and conscious effort to change the chatter that is undermining you, into something that is more positive and supportive. However, there is no point in telling yourself that, “you can do it” or that, “You are still young enough to make the change” if you don’t believe it.
1. What you would benefit from is taking a closer look at some of your negative thoughts and finding ways to dispute them. The key to this is that you dispute them in a way that is believable and rings true for you. E.g. Negative Self Talk, “I am too old to change careers.”
2. When you are disputing some the negative self-talk, consider two things:
A) How the chatter is inaccurate.
B) How it is unhelpful to you.
Dispute: “I have read stories of people changing careers who are much older than me.” (Tells one way how it may be inaccurate.)
It is unhelpful because it makes me want to give up before I have even started. This means that I feel miserable about my current career situation because I cannot think of a way out.
3. Put the disputing statements up around you, on the fridge, in your diary, in your study, or anywhere that you will be able to read them daily.
4. Act as if it is true. If the disputes were true what would you be doing differently?
What would it enable you to do?
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