Career & Youth Coaching London

Beliefs are the rules of your life, of any body’s life. They might allow you to do something or they might stop you from doing something, they are a principles of action.

Beliefs are very handy. You form your own beliefs that form your model of the world. This means that you decide what is wrong or right and rather than testing it every time, you just trust your beliefs. If you think the world is flat, the world is flat and you wouldn’t have to worry next time someone questions it.

However, the latter is the hint. Question your belief system and go beyond your boundaries. If you believe that you cannot run 5K, then you cannot do it. You will never ever be able to do it.

But if you believe you can run 10K, then you can run 10K, because you believe in it. You remember the movie Facing the Giants? Belief and Motivation go hand in hand.

So it is very important for you to believe in things you want to achieve. And, if your beliefs stop you from doing that, you need to question them.

- Why do you believe you cannot run 5K?
- Since when do you believe that?
- What is holding you back?
- What, that is holding you back, actually tries to support you?
- Why has your mind put up this barrier?

Some beliefs are empowering and very positive. Beliefs come from actions, trial and error, and you have to give yourself feedback.

Let us stick with the example of the run. Why not run for 3K and then decide why you wouldn’t be able to run for 5K? What is holding you back now? What makes you believe you cannot add another 2K to the run?

What does it hurt to try? If you fail, you get feedback on how far you can run. Maybe 4.5K, maybe 4.9K and maybe 3.5K – but then you know what you can do, and if you practise more, you can achieve more.

You need this feedback, the action of training, doing something to achieve that goal, and you will run the 5K – if you want, and if you believe in it.

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I would like to share another video today, theAnthony Robbins Intervention Film.

Robbins-Madanes Coaching Training is a new venture and just opened in February 2010.

I got an invite to watch the video about Intervention and if you click the following link, you should be able watch it.

Anthony Robbins Intervention Film

Enjoy.
Volker

PS: from next week, or in 2 weeks time, I will only publish articles every other week.

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After last week’s post I want to touch base with just a few questions. Just a few ideas on what you could ask yourself, evaluating your “here and now” and your “future”.

Often we have some presumptions. For instance there are things we cannot do or don’t want to do. We drill them into our head since we started thinking e.g. “I cannot swim” or “I am not good at football”.

But you get to the point where you think that if so many people can swim, then I can do it too! It is up to you to decide what you can and cannot do! And, if you ask me as a coach, you can do anything you put your mind to. Almost anything anyway

So if you have a presumption about something, ask what this presumption does for you? Is it preventing you from doing something? Is it maybe there to help you to look at problems and situations from different perspectives? Is it maybe supporting your gut by showing you that there might be other things to consider?

What can you do with that information?
What stops you from doing something?

Also, when you ask questions about your future or about your status quo, try to answer the following, additional, question:

If you achieve that goal, what will it get for you?
When you get it, what will it get for you?
When you get this goal, what will it mean to you?

Put yourself in the perspective as if you already achieved the goal, e.g. running a 10K run – what is it that it means for you? What might it mean for someone else? Parents or siblings, study colleagues etc? Are you doing it for yourself.

It ties nicely in with motivation we covered two weeks ago.

So we suggest that for this week you think about your goals once again and ask yourself

- what holds me back?
- what do I have to differently to achieve it?
- what do I need to do exactly the same to achieve it?
- what do I want from achieving it?
- what do I achieve from getting it?
- what are you willing to give up to achieve it?

Let me know how you get on!

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In my private blog I posted about the Wheel of Lifee a while ago.

Similar to last week’s post it helps you to identify how satisfied you are in your life. The wheel of life looks at most areas of your life:

- Physical environment
- Business/Career
- Money/Finances
- Health
- Family & Friends/Relationships
- Romance
- Personal development
- Fun & recreation

Have a go and fill in how satisfied you are in each area. Also, in accordance with last week’s exercise, think about how you can improve each area by thinking of “where you are” and “where you want to be“.

It should give you additional “fuel” to identify the areas you want to focus on, which areas you should discuss with a coach or mentor and which areas you are really happy with.

Let us know how you got on.

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Many young people are, whilst growing up, deciding whether the values they got from their family, the ones they adopted from friends and the ones they got from their interests, are the ones they want to represent.

There is this saying: if you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always got. Hm, what does that mean really?

Why don’t you sit down for 5 or 10 minutes and write down things, e.g. values, interests etc. you enjoyed doing over the last few years and what you didn’t enjoy, or enjoyed less. You could give them numbers from 1-10, e.g. 1 for something you absolutely disliked like washing the dishes and 10 for something you absolutely love like drawing.

Once you have a list, you should be able to easily identify the things you really like and the things that you don’t like. Some of which are activities, some of which are values. You could for instance like family but dislike family visits, that is absolutely normal!

Now, moving forward to identify whether you are happy and satisfied with your life, have a look of how many things you do that are on your list of things you like. And, if you can do more of those and point your career or your school activities into that direction too. If you like drawing, maybe a drawing class or a college course in art might be of interest to you.

So the above list should give you two indications:

a) Your status quo and where you are in life, what you enjoy doing and what you are less enjoying.
b) Your future – your goals. It should help you to identify where you want to go and what you want to do in life.

Only if you are happy with your current life and you are satisfied, you are open for suggestions on what you could do. And, you might have guessed, the answer to that is inside you. You already know what you would like to do and where you would like to end up in a couple years down the road.

Go for it, follow your dreams, your goals and your gut feeling. Don’t let someone else tell you what you should do. Or if you do, then that is fine but you wouldn’t be reading this blog post, as you rely on others to make decisions for you. Go for gold and aim high. You do want to achieve your dream, don’t you?

And, don’t forget the small goals, the ones that define your journey from the here and now to the future of achieving your goals: stepping stones.

Turn your dreams into reality!

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There is a great movie called “Facing the Giants” which reflects in one scene immensely on motivation.

That scene is one of my most favourite ones from this movie. It shows that if you give your BEST at all times, then you achieve the best and beyond. Enjoy this short video and have a think about “where you can give your best”. You might have more potential than you think you do.

Get started today! Don’t forget, the biggest giant you might ever be facing is inside you

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I decided to write the next few blog posts based on a fantastic book written by Joseph O’Connor & Andrea Lages, about “Coaching with NLP“. This book is aimed at coaches, e.g. myself, and people who understand NLP.

The first chapter is digging into the idea about YOUR life. Similar to the goal setting we discussed earlier, everyone might have a dream. This could be to become a football star or to become a model or dancer maybe. However, many people never achieve their dreams because of various reasons. Don’t forget, if your guardian decides you become a football star but you aren’t interested in football, then you are living someone else’s dream. And, you don’t want to do that. There is great video from Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple about this:

However, important is that you have a dream and this dream will shape your goals. And, in order to achieve these goals, which are stepping stones towards your dream, coaches and mentors can help. This can be at school, e.g. a teacher or a lecturer. Or this can be a private coach like myself.

Our aim is to give you freedom of choice of what YOU want to achieve. It is not about what we think is best for you or we think you should achieve. It is about you starting with an empty canvas and writing down what you would want in life, which dreams you might have.

The biggest enemy of any change are habits. Habits are anything you do on a regular basis. This could be a phrase “I am getting old” that manifest in a mantra. Or it could be something that your parents always told you, e.g. “you will be a good dancer one day”. And, those habits can be either supportive or contra productive, e.g. a coach needs to identify any influences and decide how to use them. Because, whilst many people have opinions on what you should do, they all aim to get the best result for you. That is very noble, there is always a good intention. Don’t worry, we find out which one!

We hope you had a great start in the new year and wish you all the best for 2010.

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Happy New Year, and all the best for 2010!

As written in my post about “stepping stones“, any goal should be achievable.

This is true for your New Year Resolutions too. You want them to be achievable.

You cannot expect to give up smoking on the 1st of January, just because you think that everything changes in the New Year. Do you know how many people fail? However, if you think about it differently, every day is a new day, is a new chance to change something and start something new. Of course you don’t want to give up smoking every day of the next month.

But, you could aim and say, that by 1st of January, you have all the tools in place to give up smoking. Example steps could be to order the “quit smoking kit from the NHS“. Then you want to make further plans with the overall aim to give up smoking by end of January. So before that, you work on stepping stones. Do you need patches? Should you speak with a friend? Etc.

From my perspective, the best way and most successful way of giving up smoking – or for argument sake to give up anything, like drinking coffee, tea, drink alcohol, eat cookies etc. – is to replace that behaviour with something else.

Convert the money you save on your current “bad habit” to something new. A new habit could be to go to the gym to improve your health, or just to go jogging. Start a new regime to go running every day, go swimming or join a sports club. If you aren’t that interested into sports, maybe walking your dog (or neighbour’s dog), joining a charitable organisation, a debating class or another activity might just be the way forward to compensate your energy you spent on the bad habit. Exchange like for like – same energy, same interest, similar behaviour. Choose something you will enjoy. Something to look forward to.

I know someone who gave up smoking. He smoked an amazing 60 cigarettes a day. Just imagine. That means the person had a cigarette before he even got out of bed and often lit two at the same time. Crazy and disgusting. However, one day, not for New Year, that person decided to call it a day. He instead focused on personal development and exercise to compensate for the time and energy he had left over. He put all his energy, thoughts and will into changing his life for the better and moving away from cigarettes and towards a healthier, better life. And, over 10 years he hasn’t smoked. Now, that is a success story you can think of.

Find your motivation. Move away from eating cookies and move towards a healthier diet. Learn how to cook healthy snacks yourself and your stepping stone might be to get a cook book…

I guess you got the picture.

Good luck for your endeavour and all the best for 2010.

Volker

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Dear Readers,

It got a lot colder outside, just in time for Christmas. It is that time of year when you reflect on what has happened in 2009 and what you want to do for 2010.

I will do that on my personal blog – however, encourage everyone of you to think back month by month and think “what was enjoyable this year” and “what was less enjoyable this year”. Make a list of things you want to achieve for 2010, possibly with some dates you want to achieve them by. Think about what it is you want to write down the end of 2010 to say “that is what I enjoyed this year”.

A little reflective exercise but very useful to do.

Have a fantastic Christmas. A peaceful and reflective one. And, a good start into the new year.

From cb consulting,
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Volker

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Ballueder coaching futures Merry Christmas

Seth Godin writes on his blog about 8 questions you should ask.

Now, reading those questions on his blog and looking at this blog about career and future coaching, you might want to ask similar questions.

1) Who are you trying to please with your career choice? Are you just wanting to become a hair dresser because your mum always said you should?

2) What are you promising yourself from your career choice?

3) How much money are you trying/hoping to make with your career?

4) How much freedom are you willing to trade for your career opportunity?

5) What are you trying to change? – this question could be relevant if you are thinking of changing jobs.

6) What do you want people to say about you? This could be very important to ask – are you choosing to be a banker because you want other people to think of you in a certain way?

Always ask WHY? after each of those questions.

Example:

I want to be a mechanic. Why?
Because I am interested in cars and interested in helping people getting back on the road. Why?
That means I can fulfil my value for helping others and growing/learning because I can find out more about cars.

Does that help?

Thank you Seth for the pointer.

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