5 ways to make a positive introduction

We’ve all been there. We need to introduce ourselves and we want to make a good impression, but how do we do that?

It starts before you even open your mouth.

Decide what comfortable looks like

Firstly, you need to get your energy right. Don’t get weirded out by the idea of personal energy – it’s not some strange construct about chi or laylines, it’s just the ‘vibes’ we give out. I’m sure some of you are reading this and thinking ‘what utter nonsense’, but think about this for a second…have you ever walked into a room where nobody has said a word, but you can tell that there is tension – that things aren’t right…that’s the energy I’m talking about. In reality it’s probably a combination of body language and our subconscious minds. We pick up on all sorts of small signals and they give us a feeling of right or wrong, good or bad, safe or dangerous, comfortable or nervous.

When we meet people, we want them to think certain things of us and feel a certain way about us. Unless we have ulterior motives we probably want them to like us – to feel comfortable and at ease. So how do we achieve this? Let’s start by thinking about the sort of people we feel comfortable with…are they nervous or self assured? Are they  relaxed or uptight? Are they highly strung or laid back? Are they vigilant or unaware? Generally people feel comfortable with people who seem comfortable themselves. They seen confident, self assured, relaxed and happy.

I you don’t feel it- fake it

So we want to appear to be confident, self assured, relaxed and happy. If you feel that way then you are already most of the way there, but what if you don’t. The easy answer is fake it. Most people aren’t very good at telling if someone is genuinely confident, or just pretending to be, so fake it ’til you make it. Think about your body language. Imagine someone who feels the way you want to feel and think about how they look. What is their posture like? How about their eye contact? Are they fidgeting? Do they have a prop? What are their hands doing? If you can picture it, then you can copy it. Maybe you could even imagine floating into their body and assuming their mannerisms…

What if it all went perfectly?

Sometimes the reasons we feel anxious or nervous are because we have thought about all the things that could possibly go wrong. We go over and over the situation, thinking about what mistakes we might make or all the negative things people may think about us. Unfortunately, rather than helping us to prepare, this just makes us fearful. This in turn affects the energy. How comfortable do feel around people that are scared? I know it can be easy to think about all the worst possible outcomes, but with practice you can start to think about all the things that could go well. What if they really like us? What if it goes perfectly? These thoughts lead to confidence and a positive feeling.

Be realistic

When we meet people, what ever the situation, we have some hopes about how it’s going to go. If it’s a job interview, we want them to give us the job. If it’s a date, we want them to want to see us again. If it’s a new job we want to fit in with the new team and become liked and valuable. As much as we hope it will go perfectly – what if it doesn’t? Is it life or death? Will we have another chance to change things? Being confident is not about believing that everyone will like you, it’s about knowing that you will be OK even if they don’t. So don’t put too much pressure on yourself and relax!

Enjoy it

The nicest people to be around tend to be those that just enjoy the company of others. So put your best foot forward, relax (or pretend to) and enjoy the opportunity. Who knows where it could take you?

If you struggle with social situations or have problems with confidence and self esteem there are many ways you can get help. Hypnotherapists like myself are ready and willing to help you to feel how you want to, either through hypnosis or through a myriad of other psychological tools and tricks. Don’t suffer unnecessarily –  make the change!

 

 

Everyone said

Here’s my weekly poem – I hope you enjoy it

It Couldn’t Be Done

BY EDGAR ALBERT GUEST

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done

      But he with a chuckle replied

That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one

      Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

      On his face. If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

      That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;

      At least no one ever has done it;”

But he took off his coat and he took off his hat

      And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

      Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

      That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

      There are thousands to prophesy failure,

There are thousands to point out to you one by one,

      The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

      Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing

      That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

How to deal with nightmare colleagues

So, you’re back to work for another year…and it’s so good to see all of your workmates – or is it?

When we go to work we are almost certainly going to have to spend time with people who we wouldn’t choose to.

Personally I’ve found there are certain categories of people who have not bought out the best side to me in the past, but as with all things, how we react to them is our decision to make. Here are some of my ‘favourites’ and what coping mechanisms I have found in order to deal with them effectively.

1. The Bully

There’s always someone in the workplace who does their level best to belittle you. They pick at you, they try to pull you down. They can be overt or subtle, but you know that they are deliberately trying to make you feel excluded or useless.

The first thing you have to ask yourself is – are you playing the victim? Bully like victims – they can show their strength around them. Think about your body language and your verbal patterns. Try to be confident and happy around them – then they tend to move on to somebody with a more victim like mentality.

Secondly try to understand why this person is trying to pull you down. Well adjusted, happy people try to support other people. Bullys attack others to cover their own issues with insecurity and feelings of uselessness.

Lastly – speak to them. Tell them that you are uncomfortable with their behaviour around you and that if it doesn’t change you will take it further – the boss or HR. Then follow through with that if you don’t see evidence of change.

2. The Moaner

You know this one – as soon as anything happens (or doesn’t happen) they’re the one who see the worst possible outcome and tell the world about it. If you ask this person how they’re doing, you’ll get a catalogue of woes that will leave you feeling depressed and sad.

For me, these people have turned into a bit of a game. The pleasure for me is to try to see the bright side of whatever it is they are moaning about. If they moan that it’s raining you can say that it saves you watering the garden. If they moan about overtime, you can talk about what the extra cash will help you do…..Eventually they will find you so irritating they will find someone else to moan to.

3. Pollyanna

Being a Pollyanna and seeing the bright side of everything can be an effective way to deal with a moaner, but sometimes they can be too much to deal with to. I once worked with someone who sang ‘Good Morning’ from singing in the rain, every morning. At first it was sweet, then I wanted to make her stop.

Firstly – check yourself – are you being a moaner? If so, stop it immediately!

Secondly, try to accept this little ray of sunshine into your life – remember it could be worse. One thing to try to keep in mind about these types is that they are often using it as a bit of a front. Don’t forget that they can be having a hard time too. Think about Robin Williams for a second.

4. The Ego maniac

Oh how they Love themselves and want to tell you all about it. They are Great at what they do, they have a great house/partner/holiday/life/car….everything in fact.

Firstly, don’t try and compete with these people – It’s what they want.

Secondly don’t believe everything they say

Thirdly just give them a non committal ‘That’s nice’ and you’ll end up shutting them down.

The thing you need to work out about this person is ‘why are they trying to impress you?’ Do they hold you in very high regard? Are they feeling desperately insecure and are terrified about getting found out?

5. The Backstabber

Maybe this person is a tell-tale, maybe they talk about people behind their backs, maybe they say one thing and do another. What ever their form of backstabbing is, you need to be able to deal with them.

Firstly – don’t get involved. It’s a dangerous path and you could easily end up coming off worst.

Secondly – don’t rely on them or their honesty. Make sure all your dealing with them are open and up front, then they have nothing to use against you.

Again, understanding this behaviour is useful. Why does this person feel the need to behave in this way? Often it’s simply because they feel threatened by others and try to bring them down.

All of these types may be in your office or around you at work, and you need to be able to deal with them. One technique that can be useful for all of them is to imagine holding a black rubbish sack. When they start speaking, imagine all of their words just flowing into the bag. When you’ve finished with your conversation, imagine tying up the bag and throwing it away. Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Another method is to use a piece of jewellery as a ‘magic shield’. When they start, touch the piece of jewellery and imagine a force field springing up between you and them. They can talk all they want – you can see and hear them, but nothing gets through.

Lastly, remember this is just a person you work with. Choose to not let them get to you, and there is nothing that they can do about it. Your reactions are in your control, not theirs.

Have a great time at work, enjoy the good people and ignore the bad ones and whatever you do, try to be a good one yourself x

Back to work

I’m just preparing for my first client of the New Year.

I’ll be seeing her tomorrow, and I have limited information on what we will be doing, so there is only so much prep I can do, but I have to say I have been enjoying getting ready and making sure that I’m organised.

Don’t get me wrong, Christmas has been lovely. I really enjoyed the break and the down time with friends and family, but getting back to work gives me a wonderful sense of purpose.

I know that I’m lucky doing what I do – I help people.

I’ve had corporate jobs and done the 9-5 office thing and that was OK too, but there is nothing like working for yourself in a job that you love.

So here’e the thing – when you think about going back to work, does it make you feel good or fill you with a sense of dread?

If it makes you feel good – that’s great. You’re doing something that you like/love and you’re probably pretty good at it. Appreciate how lucky you are to be in that position.

If you’re neutral about it – well, that’s OK too. You don’t hate your job, but you don’t love it either. Maybe this year is the year when you could start to think about something that really drives you, something you’re passionate about. Could this be something that you could do for a living? If you have passion for something it makes you keep at it – then you get good at it. When you’re good at anything, you can turn that into a profession, and maybe love your job…

If the idea of returning to work makes you stressed, feel sick, depressed or just unhappy, it really is time to rethink things.

I would suggest that the first thing you need to get sorted is you. Start to do some self improvement work. This can take many forms from reading books, meditating, joining support groups or even trying out some therapy. When you feel strong and confident in your own capabilities, you will have the tools and the energy to make the changes you need to make.

Here’s to 2015!

The year we all find out how to love what we do and do what we love.

How to stop thinking

Have you ever had a thought that just won’t go away?

Maybe it’s the thought that something is going to happen, or not going to happen.

Maybe it’s the thought of needing to do something that you don’t really want to do.

Maybe it’s an argument that you keep playing over and over again in your head.

Whatever it is there are some tricks that are worth knowing if you really want to get the thought out of your head.

Just get on with it.

Our brains have this annoying habit of not letting go of something that has been left incomplete. Various studies have shown this to be true, and it is a technique hypnotists, like myself, use to get you to remember something in your subconscious. Once the task has been completed our brains file it as done and forget about it. So, if you have a nagging thought about doing your taxes, cleaning the loft, having a conversation with someone – just do it!

Stop thinking of Pink Elephants.

Ok, so if I tell you to not think of a pink elephant, the first thing your brain does is bring up the idea of a pink elephant. It has then failed to NOT think of a pink elephant, so it will then keep reminding you of it (see the above point). You can complete the action by deciding that you want to think about pink elephants for a minute. When the minute is up, you have completed the task and your brain can file it as done – no more pink elephants!

Plan to think about Pink Elephants.

If you can’t think about Pink Elephants now (or whatever it is you don’t want to think about) make a decision to think about Pink Elephants at a certain time. Write it down, schedule it in. Your brain can now file this under another heading – it’s not done yet, but you know when it will be, so you can stop thinking about it.

Do something that takes ALL of your concentration.

Your brain is amazing, but it can’t do too many things at once – not even if you’re a girl! By doing a task that really takes concentration you will forget about the pink elephants.

Talk about the Pink Elephants.

Talk about them, write about them, sing about them, draw pictures of them. Make use of friends, family, religious leaders, doctors, psychiatrists, counsellors, therapists, bar tenders, co-workers, the woman who serves you at the supermarket, the guy who delivers your Pizza – who ever and where ever you can, go on about the Pink Elephants until even you’re so bored of them that you don’t want to think about them any more.

Self Hypnosis

I wrote a post a while ago called let it go with hypnosis – check it out! It’s a really useful technique to get an unwanted thought out of your head – what have you got to lose?

And if all else fails, maybe you should try a little professional help – It’s what I’m here for!

Positive Post-it Day

As you know I like to post good news stories on Fridays – I think we all need to focus on something wonderful at least once a week. This week I want to highlight the story of Caitlin. She was bullied at school and on facebook. She took this horrible experience and did something powerful and positive with it. This is a quote from her facebook page. 

“After being bullied in my school, I saw this idea on Pintrest about a school in the States who put Post Its all over there school and I decided that I wanted to take that stand against bullying as well. I bought over 800 post-it notes, wrote positive messages on them, and put them all over the school. My entire community, especially the Airdrie Moms, rallied together to make October 9th “Positive Post-It Day.” This community helped support and all cooperated together to make this day a huge success. A nationally celebrated day, we are preparing to continue the idea and post-it the world next year during the first Monday in October! This is a free way to show people you truly care about them! If you wish to donate, please feel free to donate to your local bulling initiatives.”

Don’t wait until next October – write down some positive things on some post it notes and leave them around your school, work, doctors office, bus stop, shop window – wherever you think people might need to feel a little better x

Here are some of the previous Friday good news stories you might like to visit

Magnificent Malala

That Friday Feeling

Lessons from an elephant with a blue ribbon

Do you bully yourself?

When you speak to yourself, are you a bully or a friend?

Most people don’t like to think of themselves as a bully, but when they start listening to their inner voice, they can begin to notice how mean they are to themselves.

Most of the damage to our self-esteem is self-inflicted.

Unfortunately, we often respond to rejections and failures by becoming self-critical, listing all our faults and short-comings, calling ourselves names, and basically kicking ourselves when we’re already down. We also tell ourselves that we’re ‘not good enough’, that we ‘always mess things up’ or that we are ‘just too lazy and have no self control’. If we had somebody in our lives who spoke to us like that we would hate them and wonder why they kept picking on us. We then use ridiculous justifications to justify the way we speak to ourselves, the way we damage our self-esteem when it is already hurting—“I deserve it,” “It will keep me humble,” “It’s a way to keep my expectations low, or “It’s true; I hate myself!”

If there’s one “program” we could all start that would do wonders for our self-esteem, it’s abolishing needless self-criticism and punitive self-talk – it’s one of the most effective forms of self hypnosis and it’s free!

Try it today – If you hear your inner bully rearing it’s ugly head, see it for what it is, tell it to be nice and get your inner cheer leader out to give you a boost instead.

Work to Live or Live to Work

How’s your Work / Life Balance?

Do you think you’ve got it about right?

If not, what can you do to change it?

Firstly you need to establish what’s important to you – If you lost your job tomorrow how would you feel? If you lost your family and friends tomorrow how would you feel? It’s much easier to get a new job than new loved ones. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say your job is not important. It’s good for you mentally as well as financially to have a job that you are invested in and have a passion to do well at, but it should only be a part of your life. If you won the lottery tomorrow and were rich beyond your wildest dreams, would you continue to do your job? If not, then you are doing it for the money. While that’s understandable, it’s not a reason to let it infringe on the whole of your life.

With most jobs work should start when you get to work, and end when you walk away from it. It is important to leave work at work. If you come home and spend your evenings complaining about what you had to put up with all day, or constantly on your ‘phone or computer dealing with messages or emails then you are extending your working day and ruining your free time. If you find it difficult to do this you might like to try this little exercise…

This is most effective if you use a method of self hypnosis first.

Imagine something that represents work for you. It might be a tool that you use as part of your job, a symbol that you associate with it or something else entirely. Whatever it is, see it clearly in your mind’s eye and link your working day to it.

Now imagine something that represents coming home for you. It could be getting into your car, a train or bus or maybe just opening your front door. When you see yourself doing that activity imagine the thing that represented work for you being blocked in some way. It can’t come in, so you can either tie it down so that it just stays there and waits for you to come back or it can simply float away. Which ever you feel is right.

This creates a mental disconnect from work and home and should make it easier to leave the work at work.

By creating a space for you to be free from work you allow yourself to be present with the people that matter to you and to do the things you want to do. This is incredibly important for you and your relationships, but also allows you to be more present and focussed at work when you’re there.

Enjoy your free time this week – do something amazing 🙂

It’s all about perspective

It’s a Bank Holiday here in the UK.

It’s raining.

So, is it a great day as you have a day off work, or is it a rubbish day because the weather is bad?

How you feel about it doesn’t change the facts. It will still be a day off work and it will still be raining, but depending on your perspective you can either be happy and grateful, or you can be fed up and miserable.

It’s up to you.

A new week begins

It’s Monday! 

The week is ripe with possibilities. We have 7 new, shiny days to achieve new goals, try new things, see new places, learn new skills, find new loves, hear new music, taste new foods, read new books (or Blogs for that matter), meet new people.

I always feel a bit sad for people who hate Mondays – it means they’re not happy with at least a seventh of their life – and that’s no fun. The chances are that if they hate Mondays, they’re not to excited about Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays either…apparently they do quite like Fridays though.

I think perspective makes a huge difference to how you feel about things. If your perspective is that all you have to look forward to is the drudgery of a work week with no end in sight until the weekend, then I can’t say that I blame you for not feeling the ‘Monday Love’. I’m lucky, I love what I do. My job is basically to help people feel better about things – what’s not to love about that! I have, however, had jobs I did not feel the same amount of love for. I’ve had jobs that I didn’t want to do, and even with those jobs, I still didn’t hate Mondays. My job has never been my life. Sure I have to sell my time in order to pay the bills, but even if that’s for 10 or 12 hours a day, I still have time to do things that make me happy. Just because most of your time is taken up doing things that you have less choice about, doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice the time you do have doing things that don’t inspire you or bring you joy.

This week think of at least one thing you would do if you had the week off work and do it anyway. Find the time in the morning or evening to do the thing that makes you happy, challenges you and helps you grow. Read, eat, drink, meditate, exercise, experience what ever it is that makes life worth living.

Have a great week.