Anxiety Control Center

I was reading an article on how Olympic athletes learn to achieve success in moving towards their goals.  I was delighted to read that they do just what I was  asking you to do in our online coaching workshop.  Successful people approach their goals in a very specific manner.

Olympic athletes set small daily goals, achievable steps they take, no matter what towards the bigger goal of being a top athlete.  In our coaching I asked all of you to “lower the bar” making the steps so small, that you can only find success. By making the steps so small you almost effortlessly glide towards the bigger goals you set.  First you set the goal, then you break it down into the smallest possible pieces, that will  take you towards your goals.

Remember making the goal so small that you can’t help but succeed, will end up motivating you to setting and keeping the next small step.  When you learn to keep your commitments to yourself, by achieving these small steps you will find your motivation to take the next step grows.

To recap: When fear, or procrastination seems to stop you. Take another look at you goals.  And ask yourself these questions:

1. Are the steps  small enough so that you will take the step, even when you are tired, or not in the mood?

2.  Is the larger goal you’ve set really important to you ? What will you feel like after achieving the goal?

3.  What else is important about achieving the goal, what is underneath the desire?

Typically the reason we get stuck with goals is that they take us out of our comfort zone.  But, if you sit down and create tiny, baby steps towards the goal, and make a decision to take the steps, before you know it you are tapping into your full potential, moving in the direction with comfort, energy, joy and creativity.

Making it a habit to do something towards your goals every day, keeps you on course.  It becomes a habit. I gave one example in yesterdays post.  Here is another example of setting the bar so low you can only succeed.  I’ve asked many of you to read the book I recommended on how to get others to listen when you speak.  If you set a goal of just 2 pages a day, by the end of the week you will have 14 pages read.  By the end of the month 60 pages will be read.   And in two months you will be more than half way through the book.  All because you kept to you commitment to yourself to read 2 pages a day.  And in addition you’ve established the habit, finding the power of moving towards you goals, one tiny step at a time.

To get more information on the online coaching group.  Go to action ends procrastination.

Hope to have you join us in this journey of self discovery.

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I was doing online coaching for one of my clients and the issue she brought to class was the feeling of getting overwhelmed in a project she was working on.  We began to talk about specific ways she would use the  action plan to set a no-fail goal for herself.

She found that she once again was procrastinating about doing a project.  Because she is very creative she was creating all sorts of reasons why she didn’t want to get started.  We picked one part of a project to start with.

That was the first step, we can’t do everything all at once, picking one part of a project, or one task begins the process of stopping the overwhelm.

She chose to work on her putting off transcribing some information for a workbook.   Here are some of the thoughts that are helping her to move forward on this project.

Sometimes the very thing that is difficult can actually become a “gift” that you don’t even recognize until much later.

In order not to feel overwhelmed, we needed to break the task down into it’s smallest parts.

I asked her if she would do ONE MINUTE a day on transcription.  To check to see if this was a small enough task, I asked her if she would be able to talk herself out of just one minute. But she agreed if all she needed to do is just one minute she would do that.

Even if this is all she can commit to, that is OK. Becasue at the end of the week she’ll have 7 minutes done.  And if it turns out she ends up doing 2 minutes a day she would have 14 minutes of transcription done after a week.  Although the goal is really small, she will still get the feeling of accomplishment each day, and in this way will have something done at the end of the week.

So you can see what I mean about setting goals that are no-fail.  Even if the little voice that runs in the back of your mind tries to convince you not to do the task, it is easier to say I’m just going to do one minute.  What will happen is that when you set the goal so small and do it no matter what, it gives you a sense of accomplishment.

To get more information on the online coaching group.  Go to action ends procrastination.

Hope to have you join us in this journey of self discovery.

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Have fun doing this exercise, as you beginning to train your mind to create positive future images.   These images can then be used in later exercises for setting off a “touch anchor” or for another technique call  the “map across.”

So here is your mind-expanding exercise, read all the directions first:

Answer the following Questions:
1. What would a perfect day be like for you?
2. What would you be feeling, seeing or hearing in this perfect day?
3. Put in everything from the smallest stuff to what is happening and whom you are with.

Here is a very important part of how to write this.

1. Write what you are feeling, seeing or hearing as if you are experiencing it right now.

Or
2. You can write it down as if you were looking back, at the end of the day and reporting on what happened.  What you saw, felt, heard.

Present moment example: I am walking in the forest, seeing the sun streaming through the leaves of the trees.  The  smell of the pine needles as they crunch under my feet, is so soothing. And there just a few feet away, there is  a  bird with the most beautiful red color, I can hardly believe I’m lucky enough to be in this place at this time, and my best friend walking next to me.  . . .     (present tense).

Or I spent the most wonderful day, it was so perfect for me because I started out not even knowing that I would see the most beautiful sights, and find joy in a simple walk . . . .   (As if the event has already happened)

As you describe the perfect day step into it, be there, feel the feeling, see what there is to be seen.  Notice what happens in your body as you act “as if” you are in the event.

Please take action and write it down first. In this way you make sure it is set in the present as if you are experiencing it.  Or as if you are “in it” once again as you remember the day from the end of the day.

But, even just “thinking” about and being in the most beautiful day creates a change in your state.  You’ll find that when you actually take the action of doing this exercise your unconscious will hear it as if it is happening and your “state of mind” can shift as if you actually just had a positive day.    Many people notice an immediate shift in their energy level after dong this exercise.  Notice which way has more power for you writing or thinking about it in the present tense or  writing or thinking about it as if it already happened.

To get more information on the online coaching group.  Go to action ends procrastination.

Hope to have you join us in this journey of self discovery.

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We had an amazing group of people at the Coaching call for “Freeing Yourself From the Shackles of Fear, Anxiety, & Feeling Stuck”.

The action plan for next week is to find a memory for calm, security or confidence. We’ll  be using this memory in a technique that will trigger the calm feeling whenever desired.

For my readers I decided to give you a quick overview of what we are doing, so you can follow along with with this action step.  To get coaching on this and many other calming techniques  I hope you will sign up for our next TeleWorkshop, March 11th, 2010. There is still time to get in on this group.

Creating a feeling of security, confidence, and calm

A. First step for this is to have a vision or memory of the feelings you want.

There are two ways to do this: Find a memory from the past or to create a new memory or  “visualization” of a future event.

1.Find a memory from the past.
a.  Remember a time when you had the feelings of confidence, calm or comfort.
b. To do this just close your eyes and drift back to a time in your life, even a brief memory when you felt confidence, calm or comfort.

2. Create a “new memory”.
a. To create a “new memory” we need to create a vision of what a confident, calm or comfortable day
b. The vision we create uses not just a picture, but also sound, and feelings.
c. To do that you use your imagination.

I’ll use an example from my online coaching group to demonstrate.

Example: The group member who is directing and producing a movie, could “see herself at an award ceremony”.   The famous actress she has in her film, walking to the stage to accept the award.  People congratulating her on her amazing movie, on a job well done.  She would step into that “future self” and feel the feelings as if she were there.

Group members working on relationship issues would create a different image.  One might see herself in the future, with her son hugging her in total joy, as he graduates from college.   She would step into that image and feel all the success as a parent, having brought up such a wonderful loving son.

Another person would in an airplane, off on an adventure, pleased that he now feels calm and relaxed. As he steps into himself he can feel the amazement that this is now so easy to do. Perhaps it would be a future image after having traveled successfully, many, many times.

Do step one.  Start by having some fun with this exercise.  We are using this to expand your mind to the positive side of your creativity. These images can then be used in later exercises for setting off a “touch anchor” or for another technique call  the “map across.”

To get more information on the online coaching group.  Go to action ends procrastination.

Hope to have you join us in this journey of self discovery.

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Finding the underlying issues that fuel procrastination is one of the steps that will lead to changing this dis-empowering habit.

If you procrastinate it is possible that you’ve asked yourself why you procrastinate when it ends up causing stress, overwhelm and bad feelings.

There are a number of reasons people procrastinate and they fall into a few different categories.

You can begin to uncover the underlying reasons by looking at the things you do when you are procrastinating.   For example, some people will think about the task at hand, and feel like they need to eat.  Other people will feel tired or like energy is draining out of them.  Some will not be able to sleep as the mind races with lots of “have to’s”.  Although eating or needing to rest doesn’t move us in the direction of getting the task done, it does provide a certain feeling of comfort.  Even if later you might regret using that activity to postpone what you “need” to get done.

Both sleeping and eating when stressed fall under the category of comfort. .  Sleeping does provide comfort and. eating of course is another way we comfort ourselves.

There are many other things people do when they procrastinate, but let’s look at the need for comfort that is gotten by eating and sleeping.  The first step to stop the procrastination  habit is to change what isn’t working.

So this leads to the question to ask of yourself.  What would you need to provide comfort that would work better than eating or sleeping?

1. Do you need to reassure yourself that you’ll get the task done?

2. Do you need to remember a time in the past when you accomplished a similar task?

3.  Is there information that is needed so you can feel more comfortable tackling the task?

4.  Is your goal so big that it is overwhelming?

5.  Do you need to learn how to set goals in a way that you will move towards them?

According to the answers to these questions you can begin to get a plan of action to help in move you towards your goals while getting comfort.

The second step is to look for the underlying emotion that causes us to need the comfort.  Fear is one of those emotions.  I just had a client this week that came up with two fears that were underlying his procrastination.   The first was feeling of not deserving to be successful, and the second was the belief feeling he could ever measure up.  In his case we can see why he might rather do anything else but the task on hand.  The underlying issues were fueling his moving away from even beginning the project.  It wasn’t about the task at hand it was old beliefs that needed to be re-programmed.   This is something that can be done.

One problem with trying to do things without going underneath the surface problem of procrastination is that the problem isn’t on the conscious level.  It is held in the unconscious.

To get more information on the online coaching group.  Go to action ends procrastination.

Hope to have you join us in this journey of self discovery.

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One of the skills of moving past procrastination is to be able to access  feelings of power, security and courage whenever you desire.   There is a way to trigger powerful feeling automatically.  It’s like we “borrow” positive feeling we have within us and then use them in an area where they are needed. When we do this it gives us courage to do new things and also give us a way to deal with and move past procrastination.

There are a number of ways to trigger new more powerful feelings.  One technique is  called anchoring.
We use a three  step process
1. First we “anchor” the feelings we need in the feared situation
2. Next we use the power of the mind to make the positive feeling even stronger
3. We then “anchor” this new positive feeling and set up a trigger to access them.

Once the anchor is set we can use “touch off” the trigger and up come the positive feelings.  After a while it becomes an automatic response.  Can you imagine how great it will be that whenever fear or feeling stuck starts you can do something about it and change the feelings to ones that move you forward.  Having positive feelings whenever you desire is a real possibility.

And another favorite technique I like to use is from Neuro-linguistic Programming called a “map across”.  We’ll discuss this more in the upcoming workshop in February.

For more information on the Workshop go to  actionendsprocrastination.com.

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