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April 2006 Newsletter: Your grand
design
This
Confidence newsletter is sent each month to subscribers of
www.yourmostconfidentself.com from Kate Burton and Brinley Platts,
the authors of "Building
Confidence for Dummies" and creators of the Your Most Confident Self
website.
Your
grand design
This month’s message relates to one of my sister's favourite glossy magazines,
‘Grand Designs’, based on the hugely successful Channel 4 TV programme in which
ordinary people take on ambitious projects to build or renovate the house of
their dreams. She finds it very inspirational, yet when she compares it with her
own less than perfect living environment and thinks about the varying demands on
her time, energy and money, the contrast can make her feel dispirited.
If you are not on track to achieve your own dream the March issue offers fresh
encouragement featuring a couple in their seventies who refused ever to give up
on their dream and built a beautiful house at a time in their lives when most of
us would be thinking it’s time to scale down our ambitions. Not only have they
built the house of their dreams, it’s also very much a home and not a showcase,
with objects and touches that reflect who they are, their interests and lives.
The secret of their success? "We knew exactly what we wanted and we worked out
how to get it."
How clearly do you know what you want and how to get it? You may not be thinking
of building your dream home, but perhaps there are dreams that you’ve let go of
thinking they are not possible for your life. Ask yourself: What dreams have you
put on hold or feel it’s impossible to achieve right now? What tensions do you
have in your life that are stopping you getting to where you want to be? What’s
the main sticking point you keep coming up against?
Clients often come for coaching because they are stuck in achieving their dreams.
In Chapter 9 of Building Confidence for Dummies, we offer step by step
approaches for breaking patterns of gridlock for yourself and others. Here’s one
you can use immediately:
1. Put aside the idea that you do not have enough time, money, or energy (the
lack of any or all these elements is not the real problem). Just for the
exercise imagine that you are rich enough in time, money, and energy.
2. State your goal or dream in a positive way ("I want to move to a cottage by
the sea", "I will make it into the 2012 Olympic team") and write it down.
3. Ask yourself Question 1: "Can I do it today?" If your answer is yes, do it,
hey presto your dream is complete. However, if you can't go on to the next step.
4. Ask yourself Question 2: "What needs to happen before I can achieve my goal?"
In the example of the cottage by the sea, you could expand the dream into three
main tasks: a) get the family’s agreement to move to the seaside, b) research
locations and decide where you want to live, c) get yourself more flexible
working arrangements so you don't have to travel into the office every day.
5. Now loop around the two questions again for each task. First Question 1, “Can
I do it today?” and if not, then Question 2, “What needs to happen first?”,
until you arrive at a list of activities that you can either do today or you
have negotiated with yourself to do on a set date that you write in your diary.
Get the idea? In this way you have broken through the gridlock, and are moving
step by step through the necessary activities towards realising your dream.
Before you know it you'll have an actionable plan.
If you have a dream that’s on hold right now we recommend you use this way of
thinking to break through the gridlock and watch what happens to your energy and
confidence. Big changes can happen through small daily steps.
Let us know how you get on and how we can help.
Best wishes
Kate and Brinley
kate@kateburton.co.uk
Building Confidence for Dummies by Kate Burton
and Brinley Platts
Neuro-Linguistic Programming for Dummies by
Romilla Ready and Kate Burton
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