10 Tips on how to reduce fear

In my previous post I wrote about fear; what makes us fearful and how it can impact our life and future. If you missed it you can read it here. To help us deal with fear better, here’s a list of some things you can do to challenge and overcome your fear easier...

1. Acknowledge your fear

Start by acknowledging and accepting your fear. Think about any triggers that initiate your fear. What brings your fear out? What can you learn from it? Once you are aware of your fear, its’ triggers and effects then you can start working on diminishing your fears but you do need to know what to work on in the first place.

2. Change the way you think about your fear

We get what we focus on so if you tell yourself you are really nervous and petrified about delivering a presentation in 10 minutes…guess what, you will feel nervous and your body will respond to the feelings of nervousness too. If on the other hand you see your fear in a positive light and acknowledge the thrill your fear can offer then your body will respond with energy as opposed to discomfort. Rather than getting embarrassed about possibly getting red faced, or panicked when your heart beat is raised, you can choose to think that this is the way your body prepares you to deal with this situation. Our perception of a situation determines our thoughts and that in turn creates how we feel about a situation. As Mr. Wayne Dyer says “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”. Challenge the beliefs that limit you in overcoming your fear. Keep in mind that a limiting belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is idea that holds the mind. The good news is that you can re-programme your brain with different, positive thoughts but the trouble is, we often concentrate so intensely on the emotion itself that we become lost in the negative mindset that fear entails.

3. Step out of your comfort zone and confront your fear

Fear is not going to disappear on its own. Avoiding fears only makes them more scary. You need to do something to overcome it. As much as it will feel uncomfortable and scary to do something you are fearful of, especially at the beginning, you need to push yourself, build and exercise that “new muscle” that will help you confront your fear. Each time you embrace your fears, it will make it easier to cope with them the next time they strike. Take action in direct opposition to your fear, expose yourself to fear repeatedly and do the things you think you cannot do as taking risks will help you diminish your fears. Start with small actions and grow your confidence and resistance to fear as you go along.

4. Push yourself

Why would we step out of our comfort zone, make ourselves scared and uncomfortable if we have a choice not to? It's against human nature, right? If however, we were pushed into doing something that makes us feel fearful because we have no or little choice we would be more likely to do it. Think of your job. If your boss asked you to give a presentation to a large group of people (and you are petrified of public speaking) but your job depended on it, you most probably would push yourself to do it. That external resource is sometimes necessary to make us do things we are scared of. If you don't feel strong enough to push yourself as you feel you don't have enough resources, then look for encouragement and motivation from others. Build your accountability to your friend, family member, or work with a coach. Sometimes that extra push is needed to get you going.

5. Respond with your rational mind rather than feelings

In fearful situations we often talk ourselves into feeling more scared, responding to these situations by using emotional thinking rather than using logical thinking based on facts and truths. Logical thinking often helps us remain calm, sensible and reasonable, while responding with emotions and feelings to what we believe and perceive as truth, often makes us feel irrational, nervous and paranoid. It is natural to react emotionally to certain situations, it is the sign of a healthy mind, however being able to choose how you respond to situations will help you receive the outcome you wish to achieve.

6. Stay in the Now

Most of us live either in the past or in the future. We don’t really realise it until we start thinking about it. We often regret things we have done or things we haven’t done and we get wound up and worried about things that may happen, things that haven’t even taken place yet. It is good to reflect on the past and think about future if it is going to help us in overcoming our fears, for example: using strategies that helped us in the past or thinking about how we can overcome our fear and what could help us in the future rather than dwelling on the negative emotions that fear brought us and will bring us.

7. Share your fears

Having someone onto whom you can offload your feelings, emotions and pressures can be very helpful. By doing so, you could take some weight off your shoulders and feel lighter but also talking things through with someone can help you in coming up with more options and ideas on how to overcome your fears. Also, saying things out loud make them more real and therefore encourage stronger commitment to making positive changes.
I think the story below reflects this nicely:
“A man was trying very hard to lift a large rock.
His friend approached and asked him, “Are you using all of your strength?”
“Yes, I’m trying my hardest,” the man said.
“Are you sure?” the friend pressed him.
“Of course I’m using all of my strength!” the man replied impatiently.
“No, you’re not,” said the friend. “I’m standing right here and you haven’t asked me for help.” “

8. Find techniques and strategies that work for you

In situations when you are faced by fear it is important to have coping strategies that help you overcome and ease off your fears. Different things work for different people, but one simple technique that can really calm you down and helps to adjust your state within seconds is deep, slow breathing. In order to adjust your hormones you can also do 2 minutes of power posing before going into a stressful, evaluative situation. You can find out more about this from my previous blog. Preparation, goal setting, visualisation, affirmations, distraction, NLP techniques and adjusting your body language and smiling are also very effective.

9. What's the worst that could happen?

Putting things into perspective will often help you realise that things are not as scary as they seem to be. Focusing on the outcome you want to get and thinking about benefits of overcoming your fears can also help you deal with your fears better.

10. Praise yourself

When you have taken steps, however small they might be, towards overcoming your fears, give yourself a pat on the back for being brave and remember that by challenging your fears you are making progress towards positive changes in your life.
What are your tips? What helps you overcome your fears?
We all struggle with different fears, faulty mindsets and limiting beliefs, after all we are all human. The key is to build our awareness and recognise what it is that we need to change and work on to help us overcome our fears and not to allow our fears get the better of us.

“We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

Fear exposed

Fear is known to us all. Throughout our lives, all of us have encountered or have been faced with fear, be it fear of the unknown, fear of failure or loss, fear of public speaking, or letting others down, fear of embarrassment or criticism, fear of spiders to name a few.

So what actually is fear?

Fear is a feeling, not a fact. It is as basic a human process as breathing or digestion. It is created by our imagination, our thoughts; it’s all in your mind. What you create on the inside becomes externalised.

Just imagine this scenario... You walk down a long, narrow alleyway. Beautiful, big trees stretch on both sides of the road. The sun is shining, it’s a beautiful morning. You are listening to some uplifting music and you are just enjoying the moment.

Now, let’s change the scenario slightly... You are walking home that evening from your friend’s house. You spent the evening together watching scary movies. You are walking along the same alleyway you had walked in the morning but this time it’s dark. Every time you pass next to a big tree, the tree’s shadow “follows” you. You start thinking to yourself... Is someone following me? You take your headphones off and suddenly you hear a noise but you can’t see anyone. You start walking faster ... What direction will your imagination lead you now? What are you likely to be thinking to yourself? Are your False Expectations Appearing Real?

Fear is the response to what our brain perceives as risk, threat or danger, whether it’s real or imagined. The response can be on a physiological level i.e. raising the heartbeat, sweating, funny tummy as well as psychological, like talking yourself into feeling more fearful. We learn to become fearful through life experiences, and even seeing others being fearful can also create fear in us.

How we react to fear can really impact our life and our future. Fear can steal joy and really limit our actions and hold us back from enjoying our lives and feeling good. It can interfere with our ability to thrive and by being fearful we may end up missing out on a lot of the opportunities that life has to offer. It’s the response to fear that will determine your outcome, whether you Forget Everything And Run, or Face Everything And Rise... Some people get paralysed by fear while others strive and get motivated by fear. So why is that? What makes people react to fear so differently?

It can be a lot of different factors i.e. personality type and preferences, upbringing, our values and beliefs, experience, perseverance, approach and resistance to fear to name a few...

Fear however, is a personal experience. We all have different fears and levels at which fear affects us. One person might be petrified of something that another person is totally fine with. Let me share with you my fear…

When I was a little girl there was a very popular serial drama on TV called “Twin Peaks” created by David Lynch. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, it was a very dark, twisted, surreal, supernatural, psychological show. It had a huge negative impact on me as I was petrified to watch it but at the same time I was determined to watch it because “everyone” did. Even the theme music from the show gives me shivers to this day… I know some people who loved the show and got exhilarated every time it was on. For me though, I associate “Twin Peaks” with fear…

We all have our own fears that affect us, some more than others. Feeling fearful is a part of our life and therefore denying it is not going to solve the problem. There are things you can do to reduce your fears and learn to live with them comfortably, and this is what I will share with you in my next blog post…

Can you fake confidence until you become confident?

For some people confidence comes naturally yet for others it takes a lot of effort to act and behave in a confident manner.

Firstly, it is important to distinguish the difference between confidence and self-esteem. Both terms relate to your own self-worth, feelings about yourself and beliefs in your own abilities. Confidence is manifested externally while self-esteem is more internal.

Self- esteem develops from the life experiences, relationships and situations which have shaped how you view yourself today. People don’t know how you feel internally so even if you don’t believe in yourself or your capabilities on the inside, you can still come across as a confident person on the outside by acting as if you have a lot of confidence.

So if it is possible to act confident on the outside while having low internal self- worth, then can our self-esteem and positive self-regard increase by portraying external confidence? The good news is: YES it can and even better news is that it is easier than you may think.

You may already know that our body language and mind, thoughts and self-talk have a huge impact on our behaviour, so for example if you feel down or sad it is unlikely that you will have happy, positive thoughts and therefore you will not feel happy and motivated on the outside. Our mind, body and behaviour are strongly connected therefore by changing or altering one of those components you will impact the others.

In addition, hormones, and more specifically testosterone and cortisol levels have a huge impact on our confidence. Testosterone is the hormone of power, dominance, and confidence while cortisol is a hormone that impacts how your body responds to fear or stress. In short, high levels of testosterone lead to increased feelings of confidence, while lower levels of cortisol lead to decreased anxiety and an improved ability to deal with stress.

I recently came across a piece of research and a simple technique that can reduce your anxiety, improve your ability to deal with stress, and boost your confidence in just 2 minutes.

Social psychologist Amy Cuddy claims that 2 minutes of “power posing” (Standing or sitting in a powerful, confident pose) is enough to significantly alter the physiological and psychological and feeling states as well as your behaviour.

Our body language actually physically changes the testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain and according to Cuddy’s experiment just by sitting or standing for 2 minutes in power poses, the level of testosterone in participants raised by 20% and those who were sitting or standing in low power poses noticed a 10% decrease in their testosterone level. When it comes to Cortisol, high power people experienced a 25% decrease in cortisol levels and low power people experienced a 15% increase.

So what does this mean?

It means that the correct hormone levels can increase our appetite for risk, cause us to perform better in job interviews, and generally configure our brains to be more assertive, confident, focused and handle pressure better and cope well in stressful situations.

So although you may feel foolish at first standing in your best super hero pose for two minutes, and it's not advisable to do this in public, the research shows that it can change your body chemistry, naturally making you feel more empowered. Power posing can really improve your performance in a short period of time and the better your performance, the better the internal feeling you will get, which will build into both higher self esteem and confidence, until eventually you become who you were striving to be.

I would encourage you to take a look at the link below. It's a short video presentation of Amy Cuddy explaining her research and how it could potentially change your life. I watched it and it had a huge impact on me so what have you got to lose?


http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are?language=en

Things I’ve learnt about myself after 100 Happy Days challenge.

On the 1st April I started the 100 Happy Days Challenge.
The challenge was to think about something that makes me happy, something I am grateful for, things I appreciate and upload a picture of what made me happy that day for 100 consecutive days.

At first I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew that the aim of the challenge was to create a positive habit and as a result becoming more happy, appreciative and grateful. It takes on average at least 66 days to form a new single habit but the most powerful changes take place after 90 days, hence the 100 happy days challenge. I also knew that our behaviour impacts our mind and the way we feel and vice versa so I was aware that by looking out for positive things in my day could only benefit the way I think and feel. I decided to sign up to the challenge and I chose Twitter as the platform for uploading my pictures.

The first few weeks were quite challenging... I went through most of the day without thinking about anything specific that made me happy and only when I sat down in the evening I would reflect on my day and remember that I need to upload my picture. To start with there was a theme of pictures of my son, husband, friends, family, food as those things were the easiest to appreciate but as the time went by I made a conscious effort to pay more attention to other things that I appreciate. There was a shift in the way I started to look at things. I started noticing more simple things like a free seat on a crowded train, lovely weather, day off, picnics, things that I wasn’t really appreciating that much before. I was waking up looking out for things that were making me happy and I was grateful for rather than waiting until the evening when I was reflecting on my day. 18 days into my challenge I had some sad news. My grandma passed away and a few days after, I had more bad news... I have to say, despite the sad news I made a conscious effort to concentrate on the positive aspects of my life, things I am grateful for rather than concentrating on sad news. This wasn’t easy and as ironic as it may sound, looking out for happy things, realising how happy and lucky I am really helped me through this hard time.

So what helped me complete the challenge?

Accountability – If you read my blog post or Facebook page, you would know that I publicly announced I am starting the challenge. I wanted to complete the challenge more for myself than anyone else, but that accountability also kept me going. Friends and people who knew I am doing the challenge kept asking how I was getting on which was encouraging me to complete the challenge even more. Also, few of my friends followed my steps and started the challenge themselves which was very encouraging.

Benefits – I knew the benefits that the challenge would bring. Apparently people who completed the challenge felt happier, more appreciative of life after finishing 100 Happy Days challenge.

Results – As the challenge was progressing I could feel more aware of things around me that made me happy. Looking out for positive things also became more subconscious than at the beginning. I consider myself a happy person, but I really think I’ve been happier and more appreciative of life in general since the beginning of the challenge.

Habit – uploading pictures everyday became a little bit of a routine and a habit. Although the challenge is over, I still look out for positives and I am not taking things for granted.

The challenge has made me reflect on my life and things I am grateful for more. I became more appreciative of small things that before I wouldn’t necessarily appreciate. The 100 Happy days challenge experience for me was positive and I would highly recommend giving it a go.

If you would like to flick through the pictures of my challenge, you can do that on https://twitter.com/LifeCoachPlease

Why to-do lists don't work

We all have our own methods and tools that help us to stay focused, motivated and productive. One of those might be a “to-do list”. There are a lot of benefits of having a list of things to remind you what you need to do, helping you prioritise your tasks and give you a sense of achievement when you tick off achieved tasks.

Recently I came across a few interesting articles and some research that indicates that to-do lists can be overwhelming, ineffective and can leave you feeling demotivated and pressurised.

Emotions play an essential role in how we think and solve problems. They impact our motivation and productivity, therefore if those emotions are negative, they will narrow our thinking, creativity, memory and efficiency. Positive feelings on the other hand will increase our intrinsic motivation, whilst improving cognitive flexibility and analytical skills.

According to data collected by a company called iDoneThis, 41% of to-do list items never get done and only 15% of completed tasks were ever on a to-do list in the first place, so therefore there will always be unfinished tasks on your list. Furthermore, because there are often incomplete items on your list, it can be seen as a nagging tool provoking anxiety, feelings of failure and worry that you have not accomplished what you set yourself to do.

Software pioneer, Marc Andreessen suggests the substitution of a to-do list with what he calls an anti to-do list, or if you will a ‘Done List’. Rather than having a list of things to do, replace it with a record of your daily accomplishments instead. Recording your wins and achievements will create a rush of endorphins, increase your energy levels, motivation and give you a sense of satisfaction from completed tasks.

You may think that there is no point writing a list of things that you have already completed, but as research testifies, spending few minutes reflecting on your day and writing down your accomplishments will make you appreciate progress that would have otherwise gone unrecognized and will improve your ability to plan going forward. Making progress (even small wins) will also fuel your drive and engagement, boosting your energy and motivation, leaving you more productive. Additional study from Harvard Business School also suggests that setting aside 15 minutes of reflection at the end of each working day can make you better at your job and lead to better performance due to a boost in self-efficacy. Writing things down identifies what was helpful as well as providing a visual stimulus that will create positive feelings.

Everyone is different and some people probably will not be able to work without a to-do list, whereas for others, a list may not work. Whether you decide to use a to-do list or not, I think there is a real benefit in taking time to think about your day and celebrate your achievements. Just make an appointment with yourself, or if you'd rather put it on your list of things to do... :)

Building Self-Awareness

It has been a month since I started my 100 Happy Days challenge. It’s has been a difficult month for me personally and at times keeping a positive outlook has proven to be tricky. I have found a few obstacles in my way but I have to say that the 100 Happy Days Challenge has helped me to remain positive and has heightened my awareness and gratitude for life.

The moment I signed up for the challenge and made myself accountable to others who knew about it, I started consciously searching for things in my day that made me smile and made me happy. I started paying attention to the things I have in my life that I should be more grateful for.

Most people by nature tend to have more negative than positive thoughts during a day and with our busy life and schedules we “don’t have time” to spend analysing our day and thinking about what made us happy. Instead we often clutter our minds with worries about the future and criticizing ourselves for errors, questioning our abilities, you name it… All this negative “fuel” filters into our consciousness and damages our positivity and our feelings. If you leave these negative thoughts hanging around and don't challenge them, they will not just disappear.

The language you use along with your beliefs will be absorbed by your subconscious. Your thoughts activate your emotions, both positive and negative, so the choice of your thoughts will determine how you feel. Therefore developing self-awareness is the first step to transforming your thoughts. Remember, that you are the only person who is in charge of your thoughts, emotions, responses and actions.

That is why building your thought awareness is so important. The moment you consciously start paying attention to your thoughts and become aware of what’s going on in your head, you will become able to identify the things that need to be challenged or changed. This also means that you will be able to notice and choose how you think about yourself, behave, talk to yourself and how you respond to different situations…

Self-awareness begins with attention. When we keep conscious attention to our thoughts and behaviour, we will know what needs to be improved.

There are different ways of building your thought awareness: keeping a diary of your thoughts, deep breathing, mindfulness, meditation, gratitude list to name a few. For me the 100 Happy Days challenge is proving to be a positive reminder of how lucky I really am, even if things seem bad at first.

I would encourage anyone to give it a try and join the challenge. If you would like to keep up to date with my progress, follow me on twitter @lifecoachplease

Happiness challenge

These days almost anything is available to us. Shop shelves are filled with products, any type of food is widely available, we are spoilt for choice in almost any area of our life. You would think that having more choice would make us happier, but according to numerous studies, it appears that people are not as happy as they used to be. Do constantly growing expectations, increasing satisfaction and constant desire to do, have or be more make us forget about the little, simple things that matter? Let's be honest here, how much time do you take to appreciate what you have, before you think about what it is that you want to have? Don't get me wrong, it is important to have goals, strive for more if that's what makes you happy, but the bottom line is be grateful for and appreciate what you already have in the first place.

Sadly, in Februaury 2014, a lady called Alice Herz-Sommer who was believed to have been the world's oldest Holocaust survivor peacefully passed away at the age of 110. You may think, how is this relevant?... Well, Alice was my inspiration. Despite great hardship and difficulties in her life she retained an extremely positive attitude and gratitude for life. Her devotion to music (she played piano for 3 hours a day), and treating life as a “present” helped her see beauty in the world. When she was asked what made her so positive she said: "I am looking for the nice things in life. I know about the bad things, but I look only for the good things”. I wish more of us were like Alice.

Happiness is available and achievable to all of us. It is determined by our minds rather than by circumstances, so the choice of our thoughts will have impact on our sense of well-being and happiness. Once we are aware of our thoughts, we can condition our mind to be more positive by choosing happy thoughts and limiting the negative ones. Actions are also a crucial part of creating a habit therefore what we do will also greatly enhance or diminish our experience of happiness. Habit is like a muscle; in order to be strengthened, it needs to be exercised and practised over and over again.

I consider myself a happy person, but there is always room for improvement. Therefore to condition myself to be happier and more grateful, I am joining the #100HappyDays challenge.
So this is how it works: I need to take and upload a picture of anything that makes me happy for 100 consecutive days. I can upload pictures via social media using the hash tag #100happydays but to avoid publicity I can also e-mail pictures directly to the 100HappyDays team.

People who have successfully completed the challenge claim they became more optimistic and appreciative of life after the challenge. Because they were recording daily things that made them happy, participants were conditioned to look for these events, objects, and people, becoming more aware of things that they were grateful for.

There is no doubt that gratitude and appreciation will increase one's feelings of happiness and once my challenge is completed I will share my findings with you.

If you feel that you need or want to be more positive and appreciate life more, it would be great if you would like to join me in this challenge. For more information on #100HappyDays challenge visit www.100happydays.com

The importance of resilience.

I’ve always admired those who are resilient, who can adapt and bounce back when things are not going their way.

People like Thomas Edison, James Dyson, Richard Branson and JK Rowling who we admire today, achieved great success because of their resilience and refusal to give up.

It is an inevitable part of our lives that we will make mistakes, are going to fail from time to time and the only way to avoid it seems to be living a very safe life, never trying to do anything new or take risks…but how many of us want to live this way?

Some people find it easier than others to recover from setbacks. According to psychologist Susan Kobasa, there are 3 essentials attitudes that support resilience:

Commitment - Resilient people know what they want and they are committed to their goals and aspirations, things and people that are important to them. They don’t get discouraged when things are not going according to their plan, instead, they concentrate on a positive image of the future.

Control - Resilient people focus on things that they have control over. They concentrate on present and future rather than focusing on their past (unless they use past experiences as a learning lesson for their future). People who dwell on past events which they can’t change and control, often think of themselves as victims, feel helpless and lost, and unable to get out of this unhelpful cycle.

Challenge – Resilient people see opportunities for growth and learning from their mistakes. They embrace change and see obstacles and failures as temporary setbacks and milestones that help them move forward rather than stopping them from achieving their goal.

Another characteristic that resilient people have in common is a positive outlook on their lives. Staying positive when things are working against you can be difficult, but staying optimistic about the future and finding positives even in the worst of circumstances is a very important part of resilience. Concentrating on negatives will not only not help you to move forward, but can also crush your confidence and belief in your abilities.

There are many things that you can do to work on building your resilience and some of them are:

Know what is that you want – Being clear on what you want to achieve will help you focus your attention on what matters to you. This will build your commitment to the task and your motivation to achieve your goal. The higher the motivation, the more determined you will be to achieve it so when you meet obstacles in your way, it will be easier to overcome them. Being flexible and able to adapt to change and unexpected situations is also an essential part of resilience.

Always improve your skills – Resilience is a skill that can be learnt. The more you get exposed to events and setbacks you need to overcome, the more chances you have to practice your resilience. Focus on improving skills that most resilient people have. Put yourself out of your comfort zone, learn from your mistakes, combat the challenges you face.

Build awareness of your language – The way we speak to ourselves has a huge impact on how we feel and how we behave. Negative thoughts and language can drain our energy and stifle our self belief and confidence, derailing us from progress therefore it is crucial to replace the negative monolog with positive self talk and thoughts. Confidence and self esteem have impact on the level of stress and your capability to recover from challenging events therefore remind yourself of your achievements, strengths and abilities, and build the courage to take the risks you need to move forward.

Look after yourself – Good health and wellbeing are fundamental to our mental and emotional resilience therefore integrating healthy diet, good quality sleep and exercise into your life will help you in coping with stress and will make you feel good.

Surround yourself with positive, encouraging, resistant to stress people – Having someone you can rely on, confide in and get support from in a difficult situation is very important. Sharing your concerns and having someone who can help you come up with solutions and bounce ideas off can be very encouraging.

Your response will determine your outcome –Each of us are faced with different choices on a daily basis. Two people can respond to the same situation very differently and it is the response that will determine whether the outcome is positive or negative. Resilient people tend to look for positives in every situation; they remain calm and collected under pressure so adopting this behaviour will help to build your own resilience.

Develop the curiosity and courage to go for what matters to you. Everyone at some point falls down, but those who win always stand up again!