Following the Nike motto…

Yep. Just do it!!  I have started blogs in the past and stressed over every little detail and tried to figure out how to put together a blog that everyone will want to read.  Everyone, huh?  That’s quite the lofty goal.  But that’s me, I’ve always set pretty high goals for myself.  This has its benefits and its drawbacks, like most things in life.

My ambition has helped me to reach many goals.  However, those very high standards sometimes puts me in a place of “non-action” because I will over think details and basically talk myself right out of moving towards my goal(s).

Speaking of goals, one that I have had for a very long time is to become a motivational speaker.  Not quite sure why this is a goal that is stuck in my brain and refuses to go away!!  So, I guess I need to pay more attention to it and move more in that direction.

I am all about helping people to build the skills they need to reach a goal.  I have had so much practice, successes, and failures in reaching goals.  You see, my day job is as a therapist.  I work with families who have emotional/behavioral problems.  I’m all about helping parents better be able to deal with/manage the challenges they face with their kids/teenagers.  I’ve had a lot of practice raising two boys that have had their share of challenges.  They are now young adults and I know the emotional roller coaster that is raising challenging kids, especially teenagers.  There were very few problems with my boys when they were young.  The struggles started in their teen years.  I was tested and challenged as a parent in ways that I never anticipated.    As cliche as this sounds, if I can help just one parent learn how to navigate the choppy waters of their parenting challenges, my efforts are worth it…

Personally, I have also accomplished a lot such as becoming a corporate trainer at the company I worked for for 12 yrs – I spent the first 8 yrs there doing various types of customer service and the last 4 as a trainer.  Finishing my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the age of 42 and then moving on to get my Master’s Degree in Social Work at the age of 44!!   At 42, I also became a single mom after 16 yrs of marriage… and an abusive one at that!!  There were many storms and many dark days, but I persevered!  There were many, many times that I thought I would not make it.  I struggled with a lot of depression and anxiety during this time.

So, I’ve learned to look a lot of fear in the face and did a lot of my own cognitive behavioral therapy to overcome these challenges and I learned how to change the bad habits that were preventing me from being my best.

I am by no means “done” and am definitely not perfect.  But now I face challenges that come along with less doubt and fear, more confidence and am open to the possibilities of my future, rather than obsessing about the limitations.

I’d definitely like to help you reach your goals!!

So let’s go on the journey to a better you together!!   Remember, it’s about the journey not the destination – took me many years to buy into that, but it is definitely true.

My first question to you is:   What are the obstacles to you reaching your goal(s)?  List them on a piece of paper and try to do this without over analyzing or judging what you are writing.  Give yourself a 2-3 minute time limit when writing the list.  Ready, set, go!!

Change – so easy, yet so hard…

I recently had a conversation with a fellow therapist about change.   He said to me, “to change all one really has to do, is to do something different”.    That is so very true.  It is a simple and logical statement.  So why is it that change eludes so many of us????

A perfect example is that New Year’s is right around the corner and so are the somewhat obligatory “resolutions”.  As we all know, it’s easy to buy into the “new year, fresh start concept” but more often than not, our resolutions fall to the wayside.  Why?  Simply put, we make resolutions based on an “outer motivator”, change only comes from inner motivation.  Again, a relatively simple concept, but I would not have a job as a therapist if change were that simple.

Here’s what I’ve learned through my personal and professional experiences – even if one can state that they want to change and have good intentions, we are likely to stumble and fall over that change if we do not understand what got us to that behavior to begin with…  very often, it is some type of past experience or what therapist James Lehman calls “thinking errors”.    But don’t freak out, it does not always take years of therapy to erase bad experiences or change thinking patterns.   It is as simple as an awareness of a behavior or thought pattern.  But it doesn’t stop at awareness, then there needs to be a willingness to try different options to try to change them.

As an example, it is now believed that people who continually try to stop smoking and fail will eventually quit.  But we live in a society that condemns us if we do not succeed on the first try.  It is through the “failing” that we learn our weaknesses and where to correct our missteps.  But we are so stigmatized by the word “fail” that it often is one of the biggest obstacles to change.   One of the mantras of people in substance abuse treatment programs is “relapse is part of recovery”.  If you really think about it, the “relapse” part is what reinforces success once we reach the goal.  Because once our goal is met, we can then feel confident that setbacks are just a bump in the road, not the end of the road.  Just a note, that I am not trying to trivialize people who have either lost their lives or struggled with years of addiction and/or mental illness.   Certain changes require much more work and outside supports than others.  Many times the change involves a reduction in a behavior, not necessarily an elimination of the behavior.

I also see negative habits, behaviors is our way of holding onto a certain amount of security in our lives.  Our world changes at lightning speed these days which makes it tough for us to keep up.  That daily cup of coffee, television show, etc. provides us with a constant no matter how crazy everything else gets…  we become so embedded in habits that it becomes a big challenge to break the habit even if the habit is detrimental to our well being.

So, if you want to change something in your life, here are 2 suggestions to get you started:

1. Try to think of a time in your life when you were able to make a change and think back about the details of how you made the change – from the moment that you decided to make the change to the action steps you took towards the change and what obstacles you had to overcome to make the change.    Think about this as often as possible – this reinforces a positive experience and your ability to do it.   Repetition lends to mastery.

2.   Whatever the goal you have in mind, try to visualize what it would be like once you’ve reached that goal.  For example, if you want to get your college degree, think what it would be like to go back to class and what it would feel like to you when you finally received that diploma that you’ve always dreamed of…. use your imagination, go back to your inner child and play pretend – have fun with it.   And, try to remember what it felt like to get your high school diploma and transfer that feeling to your goal of getting a college degree.   Again, do this visualization as often as possible.  Repetition lends to mastery.