Miriam Burrell, owner of www.bemighty.coach, shares her strategies for tackling a lack of self-belief.
Giving up and falling off track is something humans do pretty well! We are not robots, we are inconsistent and emotionally dynamic. Sometimes, we might feel like giving up and we do fall off track. Therefore creating a plan which forgets you are human is unlikely to last longer than a few weeks.
As the new normal evolves and we navigate a continually changing path, it’s important to set goals and keep a sense of normality, control and purpose when all around us feels uncertain. As you plan your next goal, whether it’s to start running again, get fitter, be gentler with your words to those you love or create more clarity and purpose for those you lead, I invite you to remember these key points:
1) We all fall off! Include falling off and feeling like giving up in the plan, together with the steps you will take to get the best out of yourself.
2) Be kind to yourself, like you would be to a special friend. Being gentle to yourself results in less internal conflict and increases the likelihood that you will allow yourself to try again. “Oh well!” or a similar phrase that carries gentleness with it and an acceptance that s**t happens, can be a useful day to day mantra when you realise you’ve eaten the whole pack of biscuits, used harsh words with your children or missed a training run.
3) In essence, getting back on track is about shortening the distance between falling off and getting back on. In meditation this is called a cycle, the length of time between your thoughts wandering off, you noticing and then coming back to your breath. At first, this might be several moments. Through repetition, we learn that getting frustrated and angry about having wandered off into our thoughts is futile, as it will happen, and what we learn is the quicker we let these feelings go and come back to our breath the simpler and easier it is. The same applies in life.
4) The next time you do fall off, experiment with this process and remember you are human!
a) Acknowledge you have fallen off or given up, temporarily! Notice the desire to analyse, judge and moan about the situation and waste large amounts of energy whilst you do so.
b) Allow yourself time to be off the track or given up and honour how you feel: fed up, overwhelmed, disappointed. Right now this is your truth and pretending it isn’t can be destructive in the long run.
c) Look beyond falling off and refocus. Mindset Reset! The Let it go technique can help here if you are resisting being human! https://www.bemighty.coach/resources/let-it-go-technqiue
d) When you have picked yourself up, refocused and decided the goal is worth pursuing, consider “What would have to happen next time for this not to be a surprise?”
e) Part of you believes you should never fall off, lose your will power or give up. Adjusting your expectations in line with reality by asking; “When was the last time I completed a goal without ever temporarily giving up or falling off track?” is a powerful way to alter this belief.
f) Learning from what worked! Ask yourself; “In previous situations, where I have easily got back on track, what did I do, think or tell myself that empowered me to do this as quickly as possible?”
For more tools and strategies to help you stay on track, be gentle with yourself and unleash your full potential, join Miriam Burrell, Jacqui Flavell and Kay Woodburn on the Mindset Reset, 6 week online interactive programme, starting Sept 10th 2020.
