It’s all about attitude

For most of us, success in life is elusive.
In the busy day-to-day battle between chaos and the mundane, it is difficult to spend more than a few moments sometimes dreaming of what success would look like.
But that’s exactly what we need to do.
Every day.
Our dreams are where we start from in life, and if we continue to dream, they are also where we end up. As the song goes, ‘don’t dream it, be it’.
Different people have very different ideas about what they want to be, to have and to do. For some, success is about big money, fast cars and a beautiful home. For others it may be less concrete – a contented life, happiness, peace. We are our own judges on such things.
There are books and books written on how to get there: telling you how to reach your goals; how to break things down into manageable chunks; how to have long-term and short term goals; being ‘SMART’. The advice is sound and practical and it helps people turn what seem impossible dreams into reality.
But for some having a plan, a strategy is a long way down the road from day-dreaming about your perfect home while washing up or taking a shower.
First you have to believe it can happen. You need to develope the beliefs and attitudes that make it seem possible, you need to begin to know that you can and you need to let go of the old beliefs that have held you back.
This is where therapies such as NLP and Hypnotherapy can really help.
As you read this blog now, imagine how it would be if you could wake up in the morning knowing that you can enjoy your day because it will bring you a step closer to where you want to be.
Imagine being able to shake off, simply and easily, the negative thoughts that hold you back. Thoughts that you know were put there by your parents, or by society, or because of single one-off events in your life.
Throughout my school life and university my granny and my parents and many of the people I knew, told me I was very shy. They were right. Because I listened to them and looked at people around me and was shy of them.
I first learned an NLP technique long before I had heard of NLP, when, as a trainee teacher, I was given some very sound advice – ‘act as if you are a teacher, and the children will believe you’. I did exactly that and found that I could teach confidently, manage behaviour and motivate my pupils in a way I would never have thought possible.
It was only later, though, through learning NLP that I realised that I could choose to do this all the time. I learned techniques such as ‘acting as if’ and ‘circles of excellence’ that led me to have more confidence, stop thinking of myself as shy, and actually enjoy talking to people I have never met.
It took me a long time to find out that this was possible. It took me a very short time to apply it to my life and turn things around.
Making those changes in my life have made more difference to me than all the ‘goal-setting’ in the world. Now that I have the tools that NLP provides I can create the attitudes and beliefs in myself that make anything possible. The doors often open by themselves, and when they don’t, I find that I don’t need to push at them so hard.
So to achieve your goals, first change your self. Change your attitude, change your belief and get rid of the things that you allow to hold you back. Keep though, the precious core of yourself. Keep the things that you believe makes you who you are and allow them to grow.
When you think about your dream, relax and allow yourself to reach it, instead of shrugging it off, or creating conflict for yourself by feeling pressured to achieve it. And ask yourself – when you achieve your dream – what will you dream then?

Robert Sanders is a therapist and life coach, supporting people in their present and helping them create their future.

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