No Box Thinking ® with Dinah Liversidge

No-box-approach to change

October 25, 2019 Dinah Liversidge
No Box Thinking ® with Dinah Liversidge
No-box-approach to change
Show Notes Transcript

What story do you tell yourself about your ability to change?
We so often stop ourselves from taking on a new opportunity by using language to keep ourselves stuck.
In this episode, the first of many on the topic of Change, I look at how you can challenge this language.

Speaker 1:

[inaudible].

Speaker 2:

Hi everyone. I'm Dinah Liversidge and welcome to my podcast. Today I wanted to take a no box approach to looking at change and the stories that we tell ourselves about our ability to change. You know, everybody I've ever worked with as their coach mentor has told me that on some level they struggle with change. I recently had a client tell me that she was no good at change and we had a fabulous conversation in which I pointed out to her just in the last 12 months how many things she had changed within her life, how many things she had taken real responsibility for, taken real risks over. In some case moved halfway across the world, but she had told herself she was no good at change and we laugh and refer to that quite often now and she says, I love that. I tell myself a different story nowadays and I love that wording.

:

You see this whole idea of whether or not we are good at things and particularly at change comes down to a story we tell ourselves. Often that story was triggered by an incident or an occasion, but equally as often it's created out of fear of the unknown or just being really comfortable where we are. There's that great saying, change never came from a place of comfort and I have found that to be very true. If you're really comfortable, why change something? But often that's when we end up feeling really stuck somewhere. That's often how we stay small. And so to create an environment where it's okay to change where actually change is just about a new opportunity is a different way of viewing it. I would start, when you're thinking about change and you feel the reaction your body takes, I would start by saying what does change feel like to us? And we aren't always good at looking at how our bodies behave because we're caught up in an emotion in a moment. So take a moment now and think about what happens to me when I think about the changes I'm currently putting off. Does my become quicker? Do I go tense across my shoulders on my chest and my frowning and think about those physical reactions? I think it's really important to notice how our body behaves because we tend not to do that enough. And I know with my own health experience, when I really take notice of my body's reaction to things, I often go down the right path. So be aware of what does thinking about change do to you physically and we can tell our body something to reassure that you know, so far, how has your track record been with change? Because let's face it, we've all gone through massive changes in our lives often just in order to grow up or just in order to move to a new place that filled us with joy or to start a new job or even to make a new friend. So change can lead to really positive things. And if we actually look at our track record, we can often be really pleasantly surprised. And again, it's when we're caught up in the moment we forget to do that. So I'm going to suggest you start keeping a change log. The little things, the things you do that you're proud of that you think, Hey, look at me. How far have I come with this in three years or three months or even three weeks and acknowledge it, log it somewhere. I'm a big fan of jars full of bright coloured pieces of paper or card with things written on them that I've achieved or that are great to look back on. And every time I'm having a bit of a wobble and questioning my ability with change, I dip into my happy change jar and pick out a card and on it will be a reminder to myself of something I changed that I never believed I could. I look out my window here in my amazing little cottage in Wales and I'm reminded that change for us on many levels has been huge and there are people who say to me, wasn't it frightening to move from busy a life of kind of 90 hours a week, constant working surrounded by others in London to little cottage in the woods, in the beautiful village in Wales. And I have to say that's about how you frame it. Moving here, this change we chose to make has been remarkable on so many levels. For me, my health has improved, my awareness of self has improved. My joy has increased on a, a scale I didn't appreciate was possible before. So accepting our track record of change can lead to hugely positive outcomes is a way of challenging that fear story that we tell ourselves. And I'd really encourage you to do that. So thank you for joining me today. I hope you found this topic interesting and I'd love you to visit my Facebook page, which is forward slash no box thinking. And, uh, please visit me again here on my podcast. And remember, the really good news is there never was a box.