I was talking to a friend the other day and asked how her Christmas and New Year had gone. What she said made total sense to me. ‘I wish I’d never stopped Cheryl’ she said. ‘When I switch off for Christmas I feel like everything is going out of control and when I finally come back to work after New Year I feel a sense of relief.’
Well, I got it, really I did. But it was also a bit sad I thought.
You SHOULD be able to switch off and enjoy your Christmas holiday – or summer holiday – or any other holiday you feel like – without feeling out of control. That’s your mind – trying to keep you safe.
You see your mind loves what is familiar. Even if what is familiar is actually killing you. What is familiar might be working too hard, putting in long hours, working weekends and into the evenings. What’s familiar might be smoking, or drinking too much, or not exercising. It really isn’t your minds fault. That’s it’s job.
You have to take back control. And how do you do that? By asking a better question.
Believe it or not – YOU are more powerful than Google. In fact, you have your very own Google in your head. So, if you ask, ‘why is my life so s***’ or ‘why does this ALWAYS happen to me?’, your internal Google will go to work and find you the answers. It will deliver back to you exactly WHY your life is so s*** and it ALWAYS happens to you. Because that is what you asked it for.
And it is hard to ask different questions isn’t it. I mean – it is SIMPLE – but it’s not easy. Because maybe for you, you look at other people’s success and feel that isn’t for you. You have the inner voice saying – ‘who do you think you are?’, you question whether you are enough.
It is really tricky to stop that inner voice that thinks it is protecting you, and teach it to ask a different question. It is almost impossible to do that on your own. But if you don’t get this right, if you think the answer is to read a self help book, or make a New Years Resolution without really getting to grips with what is happening in your sub conscious, then it is a bit like papering over the rising damp. Your walls will look great for a little while, but then the damp (the negative thoughts) will start taking over again and pretty soon all the New Years Resolutions, the self-help books and the good intentions crumble under the power of the internal Google.
That’s why all great athletes have coaches, it’s why all highly successful business people have mentors and it may be why you need some support. As an NLP and RTT qualified story coach, I help you uncover the (unhelpful) stories you are telling yourself and replace them with better stories, and better questions.
After all, the status quo never changed anything and so if you want your life to be different in 2018, you need to ask yourself a better question. If you need some help with that – drop me an email to Cheryl@cherylchapman.com and let’s make 2018 your best year yet!