When I work with clients we are often examining their life foundations and looking at things they may wish to change to move to the next level so to speak and improve their life and relationships.

There’s a very common interesting start point where the new thing, lets say it’s doing a bit of shadow work, or starting having some disciplined relaxing time. What usually happens is they do the new thing and they enjoy it. They get some relief and decide they’d like more of it in their routine.

However there is often the journey of doing this at the time of crisis. Lets say for example the idea of a walk on the beach seems a great idea for a stress reliever, so it’s done, and then there’s the waiting until things get so stressful before actually doing it again. The same phenomenon occurs particularly with activities like journaling or maybe work which integrates shadow aspects of the self.

It’s great though that the start has been made and it’s always good to take things a step at a time. It’s here that ISMART goals are useful whereby we really look session to session what is Inspiring, Realistic, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time framed to ensure it stays manageable.

For the new routines coming into play I often use the analogy of cleaning our teeth. Presuming they are someone who does this regularly without question I feedback how whereas it’s obviously great to clean our teeth when they are particularly dirty, it’s generally a great practice to clean them a couple of times a day and for this to just be a given and a discipline.

I see self work the same. It’s important to make a constant inward journey to keep us on track, most conscious, and at our best. A combination of smart goals while recognising these things are as foundationally important as our habit (we hopefully have) around teeth cleaning can be a useful analogy.

How are you right now ? Is there anything you want to make disciplined in your routine to help your life and relationships? The same way as you clean your teeth.

I was watching a good interview a few days ago where a Physicist reflected on his relief at refusing to be interviewed on the movie ‘The Secret’ and discussed how two of his colleagues regrettably made the mistake. I admit I never actually watched the film (and never plan to) but am very aware of its content which seems a central example of the dark side of the industry we call personal development and the way it can manipulate individuals vulnerability and not lead to anything we can fairly call personal growth.

The discussion spoke about the field of Quantum Physics and the way the many many unknowns in this can become hijacked and the secret seems to be a quite primary example. The idea that we can just focus on something and by making an energetic match it miraculously appears.

The person being interviewed spoke about someone following this advice with enthusiasm and needless to say it didn’t work.

I think this links to deeper issues in our culture currently. This idea you can literally just be whatever you want to be.

There’s an interesting looking book called SHAM by Steve Salerno who speaks about the damage of the self help movement. I didn’t agree with all he said by any means but could certainly connect with some of his points In his interview I saw.

The idea being used in a school of students all looking at themselves in a mirror each morning with the heading ‘you are looking at the most important person in the world’ titled above. Self help tools such as this certainly weren’t helping grades.

A somewhat cruel but fair discussion was made of the show X Factor and the many somewhat deluded participants having their dreams crushed by Simon Cowell. Did they really just hear themselves though?

As a Counsellor and wanting to help people as much as possible I’m always trying to sift through and find the gold to best help people and it’s fair to say help myself too. I’ve learned the hard way too and have fell victim to much stuff myself.

We live and learn.

I find with things like what I’ve just described there are often some good nuggets of truth mixed in. Something the first interview I mentioned here which I want to expand on discussed visualising mixed with the work obviously being done (omitted from The Secret) and people in sports practicing this.

Then I realised this is exactly what I had studied when I was reading Maxwell Maltz and Psychocybernetics. He discussed why the idea of the grinding it out and pure acts of will doesn’t really get us what we want often.

He discusses the need to nurture the self concept by processes of creative imagination and creative relaxation. By changing our opinions of ourselves (this can be done in therapy) and the locking onto our goal with our more creative mind as more of a step one (rather than the grind) then

the needed action taking place from here.

It is in no way whatsoever saying we don’t need to work or just imagine something and you’ll get it but rather cultivating a constructive sense of yourself, finding your aligned goal and as he put it allowing your cervo mechanism to lock on to the target.

Then almost like a guided missile our actions can follow. He introduces some great studies around the use of creative imagination and how sometimes it can even be better than actual practice as in in the case of sports people can imagine taking the penalty kick in the last minute of a game better in their mind then on a practice field.

It’s not to say any of this is full proof but I see here the useful nuggets to take away which are helpful. I would recommend and happily work with you to help you to cultivate a healthy sense of yourself and try to get some aligned goal of what you really want then maybe we could try to work

to this together using these kind of principles. It’s not to say you’ll get there but a healthy growth journey can certainly occur as you go through the process of finding yourself and your place.

I was at the gym this morning on the treadmill. I had one of those experiences of dot joining in my mind and decided I wanted to bring together to share with you in a way which ‘may’ be helpful.

Anchoring is an Neurolinguistic programming (NLP) method whereby we take charge of our emotional state by bringing back a past memory of an experience which has emotional content which would be useful to tap into a re-experience.

For example, if you are taking on board a new challenge then bringing back to mind a time when you did do something and overcome something. The idea is that the emotions start to flow, and thoughts then come up related to this. E.g, if the emotion is something like empowerment, then this can go around into thoughts like ‘I can do this’.

When I was on the treadmill, I was thinking of projects I’m working on personally. I guess the fact that I was running perhaps lead to my memory of when I first ran a marathon pop into my mind. It was 2012 when I first ran one and it was a huge thing for me. I was always one of the really slow kids at school and was unfit for many years. Actually, I am still slow but that’s not the point. I was able at the time to develop some kind of brick by brick mindset and ultimately was able to complete a marathon.

Now the marathon is my anchor point I can use but at the time I was training for one I was able to think about how it would feel to complete it. I could feel myself there and the thought of me with my finishing medal always felt amazing.

I share my marathon story with hesitance because I realise in fact to me at the time and a lot of people completing a marathon is a big thing and something you may never want to do. I share this though because it’s my anchor point, I can use but when I was preparing for it, I was able to create an almost future vision anchor point for myself to keep feeling into (anchoring myself to).

I posted a while ago about Arnold Schwarzenegger and how he had a photo of a guy who won Mr Universe next to his bed and used to visualise himself and everyone chanting his name and feeling into what it would be like.

Sometimes people try anchoring with something totally external. Since we’re emotional beings by nature we can focus on something. There’s the idea that if we’re needing courage, we may do well to bring back what it’s like seeing Bruce Willis jump off the building connected to a fire hydron in Die Hard.

There’s often examples about people just need a thing like that to just get started. The movie ‘Into the void’ with a horrible story of a guy with a broken leg on a mountain and who miraculously made his way down just kept thinking of himself just these small distances ahead and ticking them off. Oh, and he got down by the way.

I don’t like all the personal development pump up so you notice I modestly use words like ‘may’. When I work with people, I like to have a play as to what may be helpful. I wanted to just share this as it popped into my mind today as I anchored myself in this memory and the brick-by-brick way I first did a marathon started to pop back for me. All those associated feelings and importantly anchored in my value of growth and achievement. Have a play with this and be sure to feel into your values too. It’s easy to get a values list online. Just be you. What is it you may want to work to and what can you possibly focus on to own your state and ‘anchor’ yourself ?

Wishing you a lovely day.

Note I deliberately didn’t add the Phil finishing the marathon photo. Just some generic images 😊
Take care.