Friday 20 August 2010

Finding Courage to Take Risks


Hello V,

I noticed your comment about having courage to take risks.

Finding courage is about two things: strength of motivation and rational analysis of risk. You can begin to tackle the first one by placing a powerful reminder of your mission in your thinking space (see here http://www.uklifecoaching.org/leavetherut.htm) and by getting specific about your goals (http://www.uklifecoaching.org/goalsetting.htm) and perhaps by making a vision board (lots on Google about that).

You can begin to tackle the fear by writing down the nightmares your mind is whispering to you, then analysing them with your higher brain. Chances are they are not fully rational - they may even be laughable when you look at them straight on. Keep pushing the fear statement to its conclusion, so it your fear is "I'd lose my job" ask "and then what?" - to which you might say "Well, at my age I won't get another" - and then what? "I'll starve and die". When you do that you can see the steps and analyse the thinking.

I can virtually guarantee this process will give you a vastly different fear structure. If real fears remain you can do something else - ask yourself how you could offset or minimize that outcome When you stop running from fear and "sit in it" for a time, and shine the light of rational thinking on it, you see it more clearly and it's less scary.

This is all difficult to do alone, because you're using a broken tool (your thinking) to fix itself. A coach can supplement that by helping you to fight pessimism and stay positive, keeping you find time to act and to stay focused and productive, helping you problem-solve, managing stress, and more.

But, but you can certainly make progress alone.

Good Luck! If I can help, do let me know.

No comments:

Post a Comment