Step into your greatness. You have gathered so much wisdom and knowledge in your life.  You have developed skills and abilities that make you uniquely who you are.

Think of the values shared by your family – service, excellence, kindness.  These are like the water you swim in.  You don’t notice them because they are so familiar.  Yet you can feel grateful for the solid foundation they create, contributing to the person you have become.

Appreciate the things you have learned – how to fix a car, how to help others reach their potential, how to program a computer.  Recognize the hard work that went into that learning and the value that knowledge has for yourself and for others.
Consider the wisdom you have developed over the years – patience, compassion, acceptance.  Celebrate how you have let your rough edges become smoothed by experience.

It is so easy to take for granted the gift that you are and the gifts that you have to offer.  Take the time to value those gifts and share them with others.  Doing this will help you to make your good life better.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that you don’t know what to do and your coach or therapist has the answers.  It’s tempting to put them on a pedestal as the expert who will solve all of your problems.  When you do this, you lower yourself in relation to them. This is unfair to you and simply not true.

Only you know what’s right for you

It’s a mistake to go into the relationship thinking that your therapist or coach has all the answers and all you need is to get those answers from them.  This attitude demeans you.  You come into greater integrity and self-respect when you see yourself as an equal co-creator in the relationship.

The people you work with may offer answers or solutions to your problems or the challenges you face. Only you can know for sure if their suggestions fit for you.
The truth is that most of the answers you need can be found within.  When a helping professional makes a suggestion, check your gut to be sure that what they are saying resonates for you.

I once had a client who, following her therapist’s advice, had left her husband five years before she ever came to see me.  She still harbored resentment towards her therapist for a decision she regretted every day.

Only you can be the author of your life

Approach helping professionals with curiosity.  Be interested in what they have to offer.  Remember, only you can decide what fits for you and only you can make it happen.
Don’t expect them to do it for you!  When you do this you, you make yourself less important than you really are.  Only you can change your life, by implementing what works for you. No matter how valuable the assistance of your coach or therapist, it will be your hard work that creates the changes you want in your life.

Remember, your coach or therapist is not the authority and you need their help. You are the authority, seeking assistance. You diminish yourself if you see a helping professional as smarter, or better than you.  By owning your own authority, you own your own dignity and importance. Stand tall and see the value of what they offer as enhancing who you are and what you do.

5.    Maintenance:

Most people enter the Action stage filled with enthusiasm and excitement.  There is a sense of euphoria as they begin to see positive change and experience the benefits that this brings.

It is much more of a challenge to maintain that change.  As you move further from the negative experiences created by the old behavior, it becomes easier to minimize their costs.  Temptations arise which can be difficult to resist.

Maintenance is the long haul during which old habits are being replaced by new ones.  Lapses are common during the Maintenance phase.  It may be necessary to return to Planning or even to Contemplation to remedy these lapses.

Some people who lapse in the Maintenance stage get so discouraged that they return to Precontemplation.  Don’t let this happen to you!

When you understand that change rarely proceeds in a straight line, you can recognize a lapse as a normal part of the change process and get quickly back on track.

6.    Termination (Transformation):

Once the new habits have replaced the old, maladaptive behaviors you can consider yourself in what Prochaska labels the Termination phase.  I prefer the term Transformation.

In Transformation, the desired change has been accomplished.  With the new behaviors established, you are no longer the same person.  You couldn’t imagine going back to the old behavior patterns. You have achieved your goal.

Understanding the process of change will help you achieve your goals and make your good life better!  If you would like to learn more about the six stages of change, I heartily recommend Prochaska’s book, Changing for Good.

Jeannette Samanen, Ph.D.
Jeannette’s professional development began with graduate school at the University of Oregon.  Her first post-doctoral position was at the Boston University School of Medicine where, as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology), where she specialized in stress management and behavioral medicine.  Jeannette has had over 30 years of experience as a life coach and psychologist and derives great pleasure from helping clients transform their lives for the better.

Change is hard.  The path of least resistance leads straight to the familiar ways of doing things.  The demands of your busy life distract your attention from your behavior change project.  Old habits have a way of reasserting themselves.

Accountability Will Help You Succeed!

In life coaching, accountability is one of the most powerful tools for helping people succeed.  Accountability literally means making an account.  When you know you are going to make an account to someone else, you are more likely to follow through with the steps you’ve committed to for reaching your goal.   An on-going relationship with someone to whom you make an account  helps you stay on track over time.

Involving another person in your behavior change program helps you strengthen your commitment and maintain your focus.  When things go well you have someone to celebrate with.  When problems arise there’s someone to help you identify what went wrong and figure out how to get back on track.

Here are three ways you can create accountability in your life:

1. Enlist a Friend:

You have probably noticed that you’re more likely to stick with an exercise program when you find a buddy to participate with you.  If you just don’t feel like getting up early one morning to take that run, you’re much more likely to get moving if you know you’ll let your friend down if you don’t show up.

You can make a contest of it, seeing who reaches a weight loss or savings plan goal first.  You could also make a bet with a friend or family member.  If you succeed at your behavior change, you win your bet in addition to the satisfaction of achieving your goal.

Engaging a friend or family member will not only help you succeed.  Working toward a shared goal will provide companionship and strengthen the relationship.

2. Join a Group or a Class:

When you make a group or a class a part of your weekly schedule, you improve the chances that you’ll follow through.  The structure of a weekly class or group creates a routine in your life that becomes a regular habit.

It can be much easier to get to the gym for an exercise class, than to work out on your own.  If you try doing it at home, it’s easy to get distracted by the kids, the TV, or the thousands of other things you need to do around the house.

Participation in a group brings you into contact with others who share your interests or goals.  Other members can offer encouragement and support.  If you are motivated by competition, comparing your progress to others’ can provide an incentive.  Twelve Step, weight loss, and smoking cessation groups all provide ongoing support to help you establish and maintain healthy behaviors.  Joining a book group provides social interaction and stimulating conversation, in addition to making sure that you get those books read.

If your goal is developing a new skill, such as photography or playing the guitar, or pursuing an interest such as becoming a wine connoisseur, a class provides information and guidance in a systematic manner.  You can also expand your social network when you come into contact with others who share your interests.

3. Hire a Life Coach:

A life coach is a professional, with expertise in helping you achieve your goals.  Your regularly scheduled meetings keep you focused on your objectives amid the distractions of your daily life.  Reporting on your progress, both in and between sessions, creates the accountability and support  that maximize the likelihood of your following through on action steps.  The feedback you receive, whether celebration of successes or problem solving to address unexpected challenges, will help you to succeed.

Whatever your goal, you increase the chances that you will succeed if you create accountability.  And achieving your goals will make your good life better.

Jeannette Samanen, Ph.D.
Jeannette’s professional development began with graduate school at the University of Oregon.  Her first post-doctoral position was at the Boston University School of Medicine where, as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology), where she specialized in stress management and behavioral medicine.  Jeannette has had over 30 years of experience as a life coach and psychologist and derives great pleasure from helping clients transform their lives for the better.

To Do Lists are terrific for managing your ‘to do’s’. You don’t need to worry about forgetting what it is you need to do. You don’t need to keep track in your head of the multitude of items once they are written down. When you’ve accomplished a task you can check it off your list, providing a momentary sense of triumph.

Here’s the problem with To Do lists: they are like the hydra, the many headed monster of Greek mythology. When any one of the hydra’s heads was cut off, two grew in its place.

If your ‘To Do’ list is kept electronically, the completed items disappear as soon as you delete them to be replaced immediately with the next tasks which arise, or those you’ve been postponing. If you maintain your To Do List with paper and pencil, you cross off the completed items and add new ones. When the list becomes too much of a mess, or you turn the page to begin a new week, you copy over the not yet completed tasks and start all over again.

Either way, no matter how many items you accomplish, there’s a never-ending phalanx of new items ready to immediately take their place. The focus always remains on all of the things you have yet to do, while your accomplishments disappear out of your consciousness and into the ether (or your waste basket).

This can become daunting and, ultimately, discouraging. You may feel like a hamster scurrying furiously on its wheel, never making headway against the constant torrent of To Do. The sense of never being able to accomplish enough undermines your confidence and self-esteem.

To get legitimate satisfaction from all that you’ve accomplished, and build your confidence and self-esteem, create a companion for your ‘To Do’ List: an ‘I’ve Done It!’ List.

It’s easy to lose track of or minimize your real accomplishments. Keeping a record of what you have achieved provides you with concrete evidence you can use to provide encouragement and build your confidence.

When you complete a task, rather than simply deleting it from your electronic To Do List or crossing it off your paper and pencil one, transfer it to your ‘I’ve Done It!’ List. Make a habit of referring regularly to your list of accomplishments to remind you of the progress you are making on important projects in your life and boost your self-esteem. Any time you feel overwhelmed or discouraged, get out your ‘I’ve Done It!’ List, and enhance your confidence by reminding yourself of how far you really have come.

By focusing on your accomplishments, you will build confidence that energizes and empowers you to tackle your ‘To Do’ List with renewed vigor. The increased self-esteem you experience will lead to further success, helping you to make your good life better.

Jeannette Samanen, Ph.D.
Jeannette’s professional development began with graduate school at the University of Oregon.  Her first post-doctoral position was at the Boston University School of Medicine where, as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology), where she specialized in stress management and behavioral medicine.  Jeannette has had over 30 years of experience as a life coach and psychologist and derives great pleasure from helping clients transform their lives for the better.

How you think influences the way you act and feel in major ways.  Negative beliefs about yourself hold you back more certainly than external forces can.  You actually have enormous control over what you think.  It’s a matter of turning old habits of negative thinking into new practices of positive beliefs.  Doing this will improve your confidence and empower you to achieve your goals.

Negative beliefs fall into two categories:  self-criticism and worry.

The Problem with Self-criticism:

It doesn’t matter whether self-criticism addresses the past or the present or self-doubt raises concerns about the future.   Negative thinking always undermines you.  Beating yourself up about regrets from the past distracts you from what you need to focus on in the present and brings you down.  Doubt in your abilities saps your energy and confidence and holds you back.  The expectation that you’ll fail inhibits you from attempting new things.  It’s hard to succeed if you are plagued by negative thinking.

It may seem that negative thinking serves a protective function.  Many of us were raised with the notion that criticism is necessary for success.  We believe that focusing on what we do wrong will prevent us from making the same mistakes again.  It can also feel like self-criticism protects us from attacks from others. If we catch what we do wrong first, we may be able to correct it before someone else notices.  If we criticize ourselves aloud, others will know we’re already aware that we’ve done something wrong and may refrain from blaming us.

Of course it’s important to learn from your mistakes and it may be appropriate to acknowledge them to others.  You just don’t need to beat yourself up.  It’s much more effective to calmly notice an error and then focus on what you need to do to correct the problem.

Jeannette Samanen, Ph.D.
Jeannette’s professional development began with graduate school at the University of Oregon.  Her first post-doctoral position was at the Boston University School of Medicine where, as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology), where she specialized in stress management and behavioral medicine.  Jeannette has had over 30 years of experience as a life coach and psychologist and derives great pleasure from helping clients transform their lives for the better.

I am often surprised at how unconscious my coaching clients are of their negative self-talk. The first step toward replacing your negative thinking with positive beliefs is to pay close attention to what is going on between your ears.  Monitor your thought content for critical self-statements like, “You idiot!” or “How could you DO that???”  Listen carefully to the words that come out of your mouth.

Notice when you are harsh on yourself and ask gently, “Is that appropriate?”  If your self-criticism habit is firmly entrenched you will probably reply with an emphatic “Yes!”  Then ask yourself how you feel when you treat yourself so meanly.  If you are honest with yourself, you will notice that you feel deflated or discouraged or some other unhappy feeling.

Now, gently correct that thought or statement.  Tell yourself, “Just because I did that, doesn’t mean I’m an idiot,” or “It would have been better if I had done that differently, but beating myself up isn’t going to help anything.”

At the beginning, you may need to watch out for beating yourself up for being mean to yourself:  “You idiot!  There you go again!  What’s WRONG with you? You’ll never learn to be kind to yourself!”  Use humor when old habits of negativity reassert themselves:  “Oops!  There you go again!” Or, you could even say something like, “Sweetheart, you do not deserve to treat yourself that way.  Life is too short for such cruelty!”

As you correct your negative thinking begin to replace it with positive beliefs.  If you do something you are unhappy with, ask yourself, “What can I do to fix this?” or “What is the learning here?”  Encourage yourself by affirming that you’ll do better next time.  Over time you will change the habit of negativity to the habit of positive, encouraging thinking.  As you do this, you will empower yourself to act free of the fear of beating yourself up should things not turn out exactly as you would like them to.  You will also feel much more confident and self-accepting.  All of which, of course, will help you to achieve your goals and make your good life better.

Jeannette Samanen, Ph.D.
Jeannette’s professional development began with graduate school at the University of Oregon.  Her first post-doctoral position was at the Boston University School of Medicine where, as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology), where she specialized in stress management and behavioral medicine.  Jeannette has had over 30 years of experience as a life coach and psychologist and derives great pleasure from helping clients transform their lives for the better.

While this may seem like an obvious statement, failure to acknowledge the validity of the other person’s perspective is one of the top ways that disagreements escalate into conflict.

When a friend, a co-worker or a family member disagrees with you, it is easy to slip into a win/lose mentality.  Either you’re right and you win or they’re right and you lose.  No one wants to be a loser, so it’s easy to get locked into the rightness of your position.  Things can quickly escalate into angry conflict when both people get stuck in this behavior.

The truth is that in most situations, both positions have validity.  The trick is to be willing to recognize and acknowledge that the other person’s point of view is plausible, even though it differs from your own.

To do this it is crucial to remember that every person has their own point of view.  The other person simply sees things or does them differently from you.  They have been doing things a certain way all of their lives, just as you have.  Their way has worked perfectly well for them, just as yours has worked for you.

Just because one person’s viewpoint or way of doing something works doesn’t mean that the other person’s does not.  You can both be right.  When you keep this in mind, it is easier to take disagreement at face value, rather than experiencing it as a put-down or an attack.

When you validate the other person’s position, it makes it much more likely that they will be willing to consider your point of view, as well.

When you are able to experience disagreement in this way, you and the other person can move beyond a win/lose position – your way or their way – to a win/win exploration of what’s the best way to deal with the situation at hand.

Instead of being adversaries, you become a team, addressing the challenge together.  Conflict is avoided.  What’s more, by drawing on the best of both positions, you are likely to come up with a solution that works for both of you, a solution that will probably be better than anything either of you would have come up with on your own.

You win, the other person wins, the relationship wins and you will be making your good life better!

Being willing and able to endorse your excellence has a number of benefits. Here are some of them:

1. Familiarity with your own strengths provides awareness of the qualities that can help you to succeed.

When you set a goal for yourself it is important to know those characteristics which have helped you to succeed in the past. If you are aware of your strengths and willing to acknowledge them, you can consciously utilize them to help you achieve your goals in the present.

Your strengths may be diligence or enthusiasm or perseverance or any other character trait that has helped you to succeed in the past. Whatever they are, these strengths will always be available to you. You can draw on these same strengths to achieve your goal in the present, no matter how daunting it may seem.

If you would like to learn more about your own strengths, I highly recommend you visit the website www.authentichappiness.com. There you will find the VIA Signature Strengths Questionnaire which measures 24 character strengths. It takes only about 20 minutes to complete this questionnaire and it is free! You will have a list of your top strengths. Awareness of these strengths will help you answer the question, “How can I ever accomplish THIS???”

2. When you acknowledge your successes you become an expert in what you can do to achieve your goals.

When you recognize what you do that works, you can build on your successes to reach your goals. Pay attention to the tiny winning choices that you make. Notice the differences they make in your life.

Are you more effective when you take a brief break a couple of times a day? Do people react differently when you treat them with greater kindness? When you become an expert on the outcome of your choices, you learn what behaviors work. You become keenly aware of what you need to do more of to succeed. When you are empowered in this way, the choices you make will create your success.

3. Honestly present your excellence to others.

There are certain situations, such as job interviews, where success depends on your being able to affirm the contributions you have made. This is not bragging when done in a matter-of-fact manner.

A simple acknowledgement of your strengths and accomplishments conveys necessary information while projecting the self confidence every employer seeks in a potential hire.

As you practice endorsing your excellence it will become easier. After all, it is natural to feel good about how great you really are!

When you are upset about something, it may feel like there’s no way you could calm down.  In fact, there are simple, straightforward techniques you can use to transform upset into calm.  When you do, you’ll deal more effectively with the situation.

Here are the steps you can use to transform upset into calm.

First notice how you feel as you let upset overtake you.  Pay careful attention to the impact of your upset on your body and your mind.

Notice any tightness in your muscles or clenching in your gut.  Be aware of the unpleasant thoughts and feelings aroused by your outrage.  If your criticism is directed at yourself, notice how undermining those attacks on yourself truly are.

Then ask yourself,  “How would I be, if I weren’t reacting this way?”

If you are honest with yourself, you will note that you would be calmer and more peaceful, more comfortable and better able to deal with the situation if you were free of your upset.

From this perspective, you can see that your own upset is as much of a problem as whatever provoked your response.

Really allow yourself to imagine fully how it would feel to remain calm.  Invite the thoughts that would support a calm response, such as “This really isn’t all that important” or “Maybe s/he didn’t do that to hurt me.”

Visualize yourself responding appropriately when frustrated, disappointed or angry.  Then practice the calm you have visualized

As you begin to visualize alternatives to overreacting, you become aware of the choices available to you.  When you feel your upset beginning to arise, take a deep breath and consider your options.  Ask yourself, “Would I rather be upset or calm in this situation?”

Gradually, as you practice new patterns of thought and behavior, you will replace the habit of upset with the habit of calm.