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Question: I honestly feel my difficult situation is hopeless and it is ripping me apart. I would love some advice on how to cope when you feel all is lost because right now I am just miserable. I’m not suicidal or anything though, just really discouraged by my lot in life. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. What advice do you have for helping me pull myself up in spite of a hopeless situation? Answer: I appreciate you mentioning that you aren’t suicidal, but if your dark, hopeless feelings don’t go away with an attitude shift, you may still want to visit with a mental health professional to make sure depression is not a factor. Hopelessness is defined as believing your situation is beyond any optimism, impossible or incapable of solution or improvement. It is not a state of depression, but a discouragement in that your just situation can’t be changed. Hopelessness is often a self-fulfilling prophecy too, because when you believe your situation is hopeless, you usually don't try too hard to change it. Then, when you do nothing to change your situation, and nothing changes, you think you were right. Aaron T. Beck, the father of Cognitive Therapy and creator of the Beck Hopelessness Scale, found that everyone has negative, hopeless thoughts that pop up spontaneously at times. The problem is that if you spend too much time in these hopeless thoughts, you can start to believe them. Beck helps people identify their hopeless thoughts, evaluate them for accuracy and change them. This simple, but not easy, process almost always leads to greater happiness and more solutions. The only way to escape the hopelessness cycle is to question your belief about the situation being hopeless. If you can change the belief, you will then put more effort into changing things. However, this can be very hard to do if you've been dealing with your situation for a long time. Just start by choosing to stay open to miraculous possibilities and change your mindset about why this situation is showing up in your life. I love this line from "Impossible," the inspiring song from Rogers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella:" “The world is full of zanys and fools/who don’t believe in sensible rules/and because these daft and dewy eyed dopes, keep building up impossible hopes/impossible things are happening every day.” You know it’s true, miracles happen. I see them all the time. People who thought they couldn’t change who do, and marriages everyone thought were doomed turn around and start to thrive. So don’t throw in the towel too quickly on anything, unless your gut says your perfect journey is to move on. Your inner truth always knows what’s right for you. If your gut says to keep fighting though, don't give up. Start by telling yourself it is possible to change this situation. Even if the situation won’t change, you can always change, or you can change the way you are experiencing the situation and that could change everything. There are many factors that lead to hopelessness. Here are five of those factors and some possible solutions: 1. Not finding an easy answer. The reality is that most problems don't have an easy answer, but they do have an answer and you are meant to find it eventually. If you can’t see the solution or a way to change your attitude about your situation, it doesn’t mean there isn’t one. It just means you still have something to learn from the situation the way it is. When the lesson is over, you will find the solution and things will get better. Just don’t give up until then. I've seen couples struggle with their marriages for 20 years and then finally change it. It wasn't easy, but they kept trying until their efforts paid off. 2. Feeling powerless. You could be in a situation where you feel like you have no power to change anything. In these situations remember you can always change the way you are experiencing the situation. Viktor Frankl, who suffered through the concentration camps during WWII, was powerless to get out. He did, however, discover that he still had power over one thing: to chose his attitude. He chose to find positive things to focus on and to see meaning and purpose in his suffering. You have the power to choose your mindset about your situation too and this will make a difference. You can choose to see life as a classroom and the main purpose of life is to teach you things and help you grow. This means every experience is here to serve that purpose. You can step back from any negative situation — even a hopeless one — and ask “I wonder how this situation is going to help me become a better person?” The answer will put you one step closer to getting the lesson, seeing the situation accurately and getting out. You should never feel powerless because you always have this power. 3. You think you've tried everything. How many times have you said "I've tried everything!" Realistically, you haven't tried everything because that would be impossible. There is a great worksheet on my website resources page that takes you through a brainstorming process to find solutions. The worksheet won’t let you stop until you think of 50 possible solutions. I promise you there are things you haven’t tried, people you could go to for help and resources you haven’t tapped into. Remember this is a lesson and you are going to get something positive from it, and it is most likely meant to be solved. 4. You're focusing on what you can't change instead of what you can change. There are some things you simply cannot change. Don't get caught up focusing on those things. One of my clients told me that her father was diagnosed with a terminal illness and she watched him experience all the stages of grief, including denial, as he came to terms with dying. Finally, he chose to focus on changing how he viewed the situation — the only thing he could change. He decided to look for some good his dying could create. He told his children, "Your mother has always lived under the shadow of supporting me...you just watch and see how she will grow now." He chose to see a benefit in a very difficult trial. Again, even if you can’t change anything else, changing your attitude can make a huge difference. 5. You believe that what you can't change is essential. We don't get upset about unimportant things, we get upset about things we believe are essential. So you have to decide if what you're feeling hopeless about is really essential? You might have a relationship that is ending and feel like you can't live without it. But you lived without it before you were in the relationship, so chances are, you will be able to live after it. A client once said, “I can never be happy unless my wife changes.” I don't believe that is true. You can place those kinds of conditions on your happiness if you want to, but you could also choose to be happy now if you wanted to. Also, remember that you don’t have to carry years of suffering with this difficult situation today. You only have to get through this hour, or this minute choosing to be happy with things as they are. You only have control over how you feel right now. Don’t worry about how you will feel days, months or years from now. Focus on today and choosing happiness in spite of what’s missing. Also, don’t place conditions on happiness. Take it one hour at a time and you can do this! Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of claritypointcoaching.com and is a popular coach and speaker. This article was co-written by Lisa Stirland, a Claritypoint Life Coach.
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Question:
My husband is struggling at work and, frankly, everywhere else. He is constantly bothered by things people say and do. He is always afraid his performance isn’t good enough. His self-esteem isn’t good and he is almost always frustrated and offended by something. He seems to have lost himself and in some ways he is giving up. I don’t know if there is anything I can do to help him (or advice you could really give me) but I thought it worth a try. I’d do anything to see him happier. Answer: He has fallen into fear and drifting and doesn’t know how to get himself out. This happens to most of us at some point in our life. You may be in an unhappy marriage, but not doing much to change it or fix it. Instead you might be living around each other, carrying years of resentment and being slightly passive aggressive. You may be in fear at work, doing just enough to get by, but not going anywhere. You may be just generally unhappy with yourself and life, but can’t see a way to change it. I call this state — stuck in fear drifting. I got that term from Napoleon Hill and his amazing book "Outwitting the Devil." He says that drifters are the people who dwell in fear and neglect to use their minds to choose their way out. He explains that drifters let other people and situations influence their emotions and they mindlessly react to life with the same old patterns over and over. He claims that 98 percent of us fall into that category. “People who think for themselves never drift, while those who do little or no thinking for themselves are drifters. A drifter is one who permits himself to be influenced and controlled by circumstances outside of his own mind… A drifter accepts whatever life throws in his way without making a protest or putting up a fight. He doesn’t know what he wants from life and spends all of his time getting just that.” “People who think accurately do not drift on any subject. They recognize the power of their own minds. Moreover, they take over that power and yield it to no person or influence” says Hill. Everyone experiences hard times, failures, embarrassments and mistakes. They are part of the classroom of life, but drifters let those disappointments and failures stop them. They let the fear of failure (the fear of not being good enough) convince them it’s safer to stop trying, stretching and shooting high, that it’s safer to pull back and stay where you are. When you set your sights high you are usually disappointed and you could embarrass yourself. Take a minute and honestly assess if you are making plans and setting goals to get what you want out of life — or just drifting through? Napoleon Hill also wrote the famous book, "Think and Grow Rich," one of the bestsellers of all time. In this book he lays out his research on creating success in life. One of the amazing things he discovered interviewing the most successful people of his day was that all of them had experienced great failures and set-backs. Every one without exception had experienced discouraging losses. The difference was their “capacity to surmount failure without being discouraged.” This was “the chief asset of every man who attained outstanding success in any calling.” These people learned to use their minds to choose how they were going to experience those setbacks. They understood they had control over how those failures affected their value and what losses meant. They learned how to see themselves, other people and situations accurately (without fear of not being good enough in the way). They were people with defined purpose who set goals, believed in themselves and didn’t let any situation or person stop them. They understood the classroom of life gives you problems, but it also provides solutions. Hill said, “There is a solution for every legitimate problem no matter how difficult the problem may seem.” But the solution won’t just be handed to you. You are going to have to fight, work, learn and stretch to find it. The important point though is that it is there — and you are meant to find it. The universe doesn’t want you to stay stuck and unhappy — ever. It wants you to learn and grow and change your life. Answers and solutions to your problems are available right now! Here are some suggestions for breaking free from drifting:
If you are having trouble with how to choose them, you may want to find a coach or counselor to help you. I would also highly recommend reading Napoleon Hills books, "Outwitting the Devil" and "Think and Grow Rich." You can do this! Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is also the author of the new book CHOOSING CLARITY: The Path to Fearlessness. She offers free coaching calls every Tuesday night. Question:
I read your article last week on being psychologically mature and I definitely struggle with this. I think I have a hard time controlling my emotions because I feel things deeply and I cannot “not” feel what I’m feeling. Do you have any advice for helping me to stop my reactions and get control of myself? Also, how can I teach my children to get control of themselves so they don’t inherit my bad habits? Answer: Did you watch the biathlon during the Olympics? They are the ones who ski cross-country and shoot target rifles. One of the fascinating things about this event is watching the biathletes control their breathing and stifle their adrenaline after each race portion. If they can’t calm down and breathe slow, they can’t shoot accurately at their targets. You can learn to calm yourself down and get control of your body and your mind too. You have the power to consciously choose your emotions, but it takes Olympic athletes years to learn to do this, and it is going to require effort and practice on your part too. (Also, if you are struggling with depression, this is even more difficult. Depression affects your brain chemistry and makes choosing your emotions really difficult. I recommend talking to your doctor about some medication along with working on the suggestions below to control your thinking.) We all have subconscious policies of fear that create strong emotional reactions to things, and these reactions are kind of like riptides. They are strong and fast and pull us out into dangerous water (bad behavior that creates poor results in our lives) before we even know what’s happening. Understanding riptides can help us learn to escape these damaging emotional reactions. A riptide does not pull a swimmer under water; it simply carries the swimmer away from the shore. If a person caught in a riptide does not understand how riptides work, they will try to swim against it and will eventually exhaust themselves and drown. But if they understand how riptides work, they can easily exit the rip by swimming at a right angle to it. If they swim sideways, parallel to the shore, they can exit the current and return to land safely. Experts recommend this approach if you get caught in a riptide:
Here is a simple procedure you can practice when experiencing strong emotional reactions to calm yourself down and consciously choose a more mature response:
We must realize that we control the weather in our heads and claim the power to choose how we will experience each moment. Then we must teach our children to think for themselves and choose how they want to feel. You can do this by teaching your children the principles mentioned above. Benjamin Franklin said, “Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.” It will take some work to master this, but you can do it! Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is also the author of the new book "CHOOSING CLARITY: The Path to Fearlessness." Shauna Jensen is a certified Claritypoint coach who had the idea for this article. Question:
I work in an office with mostly women and the drama is driving me crazy. Many of them read your column, so I wish you would explain what behavior is appropriate at work and how to stop overreacting, getting offended and causing problems. Also, because I don’t participate in it, I am often the one who is talked about behind my back. If I bring it up and complain, I’d be contributing to the drama so I just silently take it. How should I handle that? Answer: Inappropriate workplace drama occurs everywhere you find human beings … and unfortunately (especially) women. I wish I could say this wasn’t true, but women do have a tendency to create more drama at work than men do. I believe this happens because most women battle more internal fear (of loss and failure) than men do. Trust me, women have more fear-based thoughts than men. They tend to think too much, and these fears create the tendency for gossip, back-biting, being offended, casting others as the bad guy, being passive aggressive, complaining and blowing things out of proportion. Let me explain how this happens in your head. When you are battling a fear of loss, you can become controlling, bossy or overly protective of your territory. When you are battling a fear of failure (the fear of not being good enough) you tend to subconsciously focus on the bad (or perceived bad) in everything and everyone around you to take the focus off you. You may not consciously realize you are doing this. You may subconsciously cast others as the bad guy to make you feel like the good guy and you may get offended way too easy. When you are afraid you aren’t enough (on any level), you have an easy-to-trigger “sore spot” around being insulted or thought less of. You are then subconsciously on the lookout for any word, look or behavior that could be interpreted as disapproval or an insult. You will also feel the need to talk about these offenses to others to get reassurance and validation. This is a big problem at work because this behavior will hold you back in your career. Here are eight common workplace behaviors that will hold you back or get you passed over for promotions. (Notice that most of them are fear problems.) You may want to check yourself for bad behavior.
If you have to deal with people who are behaving badly at work, here are a couple suggestions.
You can handle this. Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is also the author of the new book "CHOOSING CLARITY: The Path to Fearlessness." She offers free coaching calls every Tuesday night. Question:
Every Christmas my family throws a big party (at their big house) and expects us each to bring expensive gifts we cannot afford. I have tried to explain this doesn’t work for us, but they keep doing it. I am really upset, hurt and offended by this. This year I finally stood up for myself and told them we would not be coming nor exchanging gifts with them. Now, they won’t talk to us. How can I get them to understand our position and be more understanding? Answer: You will need to have a conversation with them to straighten this out, but you must be able to do this calmly, without going to a victim place, or attacking them or you will only make things worse. The first thing you must do is step back and make sure you are seeing this situation accurately and have let go of your upset feelings. You must have this conversation from a place of trust (feeling safe) and love (compassion for them). You must also get accurate about why you are hurt. I learned a powerful lesson reading "A Course in Miracles": You are never upset for the reason you think. You are not upset because they keep doing this every Christmas and aren’t listening to you. You are upset because of the meaning you are applying to their actions. You probably think their behavior means they don’t care about you, they are selfish, they don’t understand your situation or they think they are better than you. But these ideas aren’t necessarily true. And these ideas only hurt you, because you are already afraid you aren’t as good as they are or as blessed. These fears already cause you pain. Their actions only aggravated the pain you have already chosen to suffer with. Their actions hurt you because they hit your self-inflicted sore spot. You must understand you made up these sore spot fears (of not being as good or as blessed). They are coming from you and they are not real — and they are not their fault. These family members hurt you only because you take what they say or do, make it into a dagger and stab yourself with it. You need to autopsy your thoughts about this situation and these people and check them for accuracy. Some of this hurt and upset is your own fault. I am going to give you a Christmas gift today. This is a tool you can go through every time you get upset to give your thoughts a check for accuracy: Download the "To Be or Not to Be Upset" worksheet on my website. 1. What did the person say or do? 2. What meaning am I applying to their actions? What am I thinking this means? 3. Is this really true? Do I have any reason for wanting to believe the meaning I applied is true? Does it do anything for me? Does it earn me victim status or sympathy love? 4. Could there be any other reasons they might be behaving this way? Something that is totally about them and not about me at all? What are they focused on or afraid of? 5. Are you diminishable? Can their actions, thoughts or words actually hurt or diminish you or make you less than who you are? 6. If you cannot be hurt or diminished (unless you choose to be) is there really anything to get upset about? Can you let this situation just be what it is without letting it hurt? If you could see yourself and the other person accurately (as infinite, absolute, perfect students in the classroom of life) you would see there is nothing to fear and therefore no reason to ever be upset. Everything is a lesson to serve you and your value isn’t on the line. (Unless you need to create victim drama to feel validated or get attention, but this would be a very immature choice and you would have to own that you are creating the whole thing to serve that purpose alone, and this has nothing to do with them.) 7. Are you really upset about what they did? Or are you upset because of the thoughts and fears (that you have chosen to create, own and live with) from you and their actions only brought to the surface? 8) Do you have any other options? Could you choose to experience this in a different way? I realize you might not be ready to see this situation accurately. You may want to keep casting them as the bad guys and playing the victim, but I’m hoping you would rather feel better. The path to feeling better is through love, forgiveness, honesty, accuracy, kind communication and respect for yourself and others. My advice is to call those family members, own the fact that you let your own fears create this problem and you want to apologize. Own the fact you interpreted their actions inaccurately and chose to take offense. Ask them if you can start over. Ask them if you can explain your current situation and why these parties and the gift exchange is uncomfortable for you. Tell them you want to spend time with the family, but you don’t want to spend money you don’t have, or feel inadequate because you can’t. Ask them for their ideas on solving this. Share your honest feelings without going to a victim place. One option is not going to the party, but with an understanding that it’s not personal and you are fine with it. See what other win/wins the two of you can come up with. If they chose to be offended and cast you as the bad guy (which could happen), you will have another choice to make. Remember your value is infinite, and you can still choose love and forgiveness again. It is not worth being upset over other people’s choices. Love them where they are and choose peace. You can do this. Remember these principles of truth:
Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is a sought-after life coach and popular speaker who specializes in eliminating drama in the workplace. She offers free coaching calls every Tuesday night. Question:
I’m just being honest, but I think you make being positive about life sound easier than it is. When your life has been as hard as mine, anger is pretty justified. My mother was horribly bad at parenting and messed us up and life has never gotten easier. I’m angry and disappointed that my life has been so hard when others have had it so easy. I read your articles and you keep talking about trusting the journey, but it’s not that easy when it always disappoints. How can I when life always lets me down? Answer: I agree with you. It’s not that easy to feel positive when things keep going wrong. I know first hand how miserable, disappointing and discouraging life can be. Mine has not been an easy ride either, but a large part of our suffering is self-inflicted, in that, we are choosing to be frustrated that life didn’t meet our expectations (expectations we created that are nothing but figments of our imagination). We made up these expectations about what our life “should be” and now we feel robbed that we didn’t get it. Is it any surprise this didn’t work? Life was never about meeting our expectations. The answer to end our suffering does not lie in changing our situation and making it right (which usually can’t be done anyway) but in changing how we think about it. You aren’t going to feel better until you change your perspective and see your life more accurately. I am going to help you do that by recommending you adopt a principle of truth about the nature of life: It is what it is. If it was supposed to be something else, it would be. There is perfect order in the universe and everything happens for a reason. Everything from the smallest insect to the largest planet in this galaxy does what it does, when it does, for a reason. The entire universe is a system of order, beauty and purpose. Do you really think your life is an exception to that? Do you believe you (a one-of-a-kind, amazing, and eternal soul) are less important; that you are left to be kicked around by random circumstances with no meaning or purpose to any of it? Could your life really be a bunch of bad-luck accidents that mean nothing and serve no purpose? I just can’t find truth in that idea. It makes no sense. Not when I believe that you are loved, valued, divine and irreplaceable. It makes more sense that the whole universe was created to serve you. That this entire universe is here to facilitate your learning and growth. With this mindset you could accept and embrace “what is” and spend your time looking for the lessons and the blessings instead of complaining about, resisting and regretting that things aren’t different. You must change your expectations. Even William Shakespeare said, “Expectation is the root of all heartache." Expectations are really nothing but thoughts and illusions you made up and to which you have become overly attached. They aren’t real. You must let go of your expectations so you can make peace with life as it is. I recommend that you get some paper and write down all the expectations you had for your life (write every small thing you expected to be different than it is). Then tie that paper to a balloon and let it float away up into the sky and let those expectations all go. Decide to embrace what your life is and stop suffering over made-up illusions. This doesn’t mean you give-up working to make things better, though. You will keep working on improving things, while at the same time understanding that you are where you are for a reason. In this place you can accept people as they are and forgive them for being imperfect and disappointing you. They are in your life as teachers. This means your mother may not have been a perfect mother, but she was the perfect mother for you, for some reason. At least you have the option of seeing it that way. Here are four things you can do to change how you feel about your life: 1. Accept responsibility for creating the expectation that your life should have been different than it is. You created this illusion so you can un-create it. Choose a mindset based in truth that produces less self-pity and suffering. You are here to learn and grow, this is not a vacation. Live in optimism that things will get better, but also in trust that what is — is perfect for some reason too. 2. Practice gratitude. If you are going to compare your life with others at least make sure you compare yourself with those who have less, or have it worse than you, not just those who have more. There are plenty on both sides. Choose gratitude for what you do have, and count your blessings daily. 3. Accept there is meaning and purpose behind every experience. See if you can list 10 positives that the bad situations in your life have created in the world or in you. Look for how your experiences have improved you. Choose to focus on being a better person not a bitter one. 4. Understand that your journey doesn’t define you or have any effect on your value. Your experiences are locations on your journey. They are classes you were signed up for, but they don’t have any bearing on “who you are” or your value. A hard life doesn’t mean you weren’t good enough or loved enough. It just means you signed up for some hard classes. You are not being punished with these classes. They are here to teach you things, but your value isn't on the line. The process to forgive life for disappointing your is the same as the process to forgive another person. In the end you must make one simple decision: Do you want to live with bitterness, regret, rejection, resentment, judgment, criticism and pain or do you want to live in love, trust, acceptance, forgiveness and peace? Every moment of every day you must make this choice and make it carefully, because whatever you send out — you get to live in. I know it’s not easy, but it is that simple. Just keep thinking about it. Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is a sought after life coach and popular speaker who specializes in eliminating drama in the workplace. She offers free coaching calls every Tuesday Night. Question:
I have issues with worrying about everything. I over-analyze and over-think every situation, and it drives my family crazy. I am seriously scared of all the bad things that can happen and experience anxiety all the time. I also worry too much about what other people think of us. I need to stop worrying, but I just can’t stop the noise in my head. Any advice? Answer: I think it is safe to say you are addicted to fear. A fear-a-holic is someone who is addicted to the experience of fear and anxiety such that it decreases their ability to function and negatively affects their relationships. I recognize the symptoms because I used to be one, too. Now, I have learned to use some specific principles of truth to change my thinking and choose the opposite of fear in every situation. The opposite or antithesis state of fear is the state of trust and love. When you choose to be in a state of trust and love, you literally can't experience fear. The emotions can't exist at the same time, in the same place. I call the state of trust and love "clarity," because it is the only state where the fog of fear is out of the way, so you can see your life as it really is. Most fear-based thoughts can be completely wiped out with a simple choice to trust God and focus on loving people in that moment. But you can also employ the principles used by Alcoholics Anonymous, which apply to overcoming any type of addiction. Here are 12 steps to break an addiction to fear: 1) Admit you are powerless when dwelling in fear. Fear makes you feel weak, vulnerable, selfish and protective, and these emotions don't serve you. 2) Admit you need a power greater than you to help. Choose to acknowledge that trusting God, his safety and his love are the answer. They are the only way to real security and peace. 3) Commit to turn your life and will over to a higher power. This means you will choose to trust God about two important things that will eliminate your two core fears (the fear of failure and the fear of loss) that most often steal your peace.
5) Admit that you are ready to let a higher power help you. You cannot feel safe and peaceful, nor eliminate fear on your own. You must trust God to be in charge of your journey and your value. 6) Let God remove your defects. We all have faults, weakness and less-than-perfect features, but they do not affect our value. God knows that these defects serve you in your process of growth. They also make you more compassionate and less judgmental. Turn these defects over to him and don’t let them make you feel inadequate anymore. 7) Ask God to remove your shortcomings. Accept his forgiveness for all your past mistakes. You experience too much fear, guilt and shame around the fact that you weren’t perfect in the past. Let God erase them all, and he will. You have nothing to fear. God gives this gift so you can focus on loving him, yourself and other people instead. 8) Make a list of people you have hurt by being afraid (and, therefore, selfish). Fear kept you focused on yourself, and in this state you missed what the people around you needed. Make a list of all the people you might have neglected while focused on your fears. 9) Make direct amends to those you hurt. How can you choose love over fear and start showing up for these people? How has fear caused conflicts and contention in your relationships? Figure out what you were afraid of and apologize for letting your fear create bad behavior. 10) Continue to take a personal inventory daily and admit when you let fear steal your peace. Start writing your fears on paper. This will show you how ridiculous most of them are. This will also show you the real reason you feel angry, stressed, resentful or discouraged. Write down how you could choose trust and love in each situation. 11) Through prayer and meditation, connect to God more often. Prayer is a wonderful way to officially place your concerns and worries in his hands, so you can trust him. 12) Share what you are learning. You learn a ton from teaching these principles of truth. (That’s how I quit living in fear.) Look for opportunities to teach trust and love to others. Hope this helps. Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of ldslifecoaching.com and claritypointcoaching.com. She is a sought after life coach and popular speaker who specializes in repairing and building self-esteem. Question:
I have to give a big talk at work, which could literally make or break my career. In the past, I have had a hard time speaking in front of people without getting nervous and showing it. Hence I’m experiencing some serious anxiety about this. Do you have any advice on how to calm down and speak to a group without fear? Answer: You are nervous because of your two core fears: failure and loss. You are afraid of looking bad and being judged by other people (the fear of failure), and you are nervous because you don’t want to lose opportunities or respect if you aren’t good enough. The best way to beat these fears is to choose a mindset that eliminates them. You can choose to believe there is nothing to fear, because you can’t really lose or fail. Let me explain how: 1. You can choose to believe you are the same you, with the same value, no matter how this presentation (or performance) turns out. You can choose to believe that your value is infinite and absolute. This means that no situation or experience can change it. You are an irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind soul and your value is based on this fact alone. Every experience you have, is in your life to teach you something, but these experiences cannot and do not change your value. No matter what happens on that stage, you will have the same infinite value at the end of it. Your value is not on the line. 2. You can choose to believe what other people think of you is irrelevant. It does not matter what they think. It does not change you or diminish you in any way. At the end of this talk you will still be the same you. Their opinions are just thoughts and they don’t mean anything or do anything. (I realize their opinions could affect your career but even that doesn't change your infinite value.) You must let go of needing their approval and go forward to do your best, show up with kindness and work hard. If you do this, at the end of the day, people will respect you even if you fail or mess up on occasion. It is will also make you less nervous if you don't care. 3. You can choose to trust your journey and the process of life, that this presentation will always go exactly as it is meant to go. You can trust that your life is always the perfect classroom journey for you. So, if your next perfect lesson is to nail this speech and win everyone over, then you will. If your next perfect lesson is to struggle through the talk and not impress them, then there is a reason you needed this experience. Maybe you needed the opportunity to experience disappointment or shame and be reminded what those emotions feel like. Maybe you needed to gain empathy for other people who struggle or maybe this experience will give you a chance to practice trusting that your value is absolute. No matter what happens, this experience will serve you — no matter how it turns out. Life is on your side. It is a process designed to serve you and help you grow. It is not out to get you or crush you. If you trust the process of life, there is nothing to fear. (Every time I teach these principles, though, someone leaves a comment saying that I’m delusional and have my head in the clouds to see life this way. If you have this reaction, I encourage you to keep an open mind, step back and imagine what this perspective might feel like, if you chose to see life this way. I promise you, it will make a huge difference.) Here are a couple other suggestions that will help: Get the focus off you. This presentation is about the message — it is not about you. Work on having great content and highlighting the message. Then, take a minute and think about the audience. Who are they? What do they need? How can you serve them? Remember that you are here to give to them. You are not here to prove your own value or make yourself look good. This is not about you impressing them, it is about giving to them in the best way you can. The more you focus on other people the less nervous you will be. Remember your audience understands your fears because they have the same ones.Everyone in that room is afraid of failure and loss. They are nervous when they speak to a group, too. Because of this, they are more forgiving and understanding than you might think. Take a minute and choose to see them as the same as you — struggling, scared human beings in the classroom of life. Dale Carnegie, in his book “The Art of Public Speaking,” explains that if you want to be good at speaking and overcome your fears, you must do it as frequently as you can. The more you do it, the easier it will become. “You can never attain freedom from stage-fright by reading a treatise. A book may give you excellent suggestions on how best to conduct yourself in the water, but sooner or later you must get wet, perhaps even strangle and be ‘half scared to death.’ There are a great many ‘wetless’ bathing suits worn at the seashore, but no one ever learns to swim in them. To plunge is the only way.” Trust that giving this speech will make you better, stronger and smarter. It is showing up in your journey to help you grow. Jump in fearlessly (because there is really nothing to fear) and serve those people the best way you can. You can do this. Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of ldslifecoaching.com and claritypointcoaching.com. She is a sought after life coach and popular speaker who specializes in repairing and building self-esteem. Question:
Life has not been a picnic for me. It has been mostly full of disappointments and hard knocks. It isn’t turning out anything like the life I had planned. Hence, I experience a lot of jealously and resentment toward others. I’m trying not to be bitter and feel like a failure, but I can’t see I’ve accomplished much and don’t have much to show for all my work, pain and suffering. Not sure what my question is, but I guess I could use some advice to feel better about life? Answer: Your question might be: What is the point or purpose of this difficult life? Is there meaning in the painful and often fruitless experiences I’ve had? Is my difficult journey benefiting me in some way? I often quote Viktor Frankl in my articles because his discoveries in the concentration camps during World War II have greatly influenced my philosophies on life. He found that life did have meaning and purpose, even when it consisted of nothing but horrible suffering. He believed that every man must, at some point on his journey, find meaning in his individual experiences, especially the bad ones. He said, “If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.” Personally, I believe there is meaning in the difficulties you have experienced, because I believe you are here in this world to do two things. You are here to learn andlove. I believe this purpose is hard-wired into all of us. We seem to innately know life is about growing, learning, stretching and becoming the best version of ourselves we can become. We also seem to know we are here to love others and help as many people as we can, along our way. (Most people who find a specific mission in life find it around one or both of these two ideas.) I believe — as part of the learning process here — we must experience many different aspects of the human condition, including suffering, grief, disappointment, joy, happiness and peace to learn what each of these experiences can teach us. Unfortunately we learn more from the difficult experiences. Suffering gives us empathy and understanding; shame teaches us compassion; disappointment teaches us to shift, change, adapt and persevere. Miserable, heart-breaking and discouraging situations usually serve us and refine us. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. It is important you remember this truth, though — the amount of difficult experiences you get here is not a reflection of your value or your abilities, as much as it is about the specific lessons you were meant to learn. You must remember that your value is the same as everyone else’s. Every human being on the planet has the same infinite and absolute value, no matter how successful or unsuccessful their life may appear. This means they aren’t better than you just because they accomplished more. They just got signed up for different classes and different lessons than you did. No one on this planet got signed up for the same classes you got. So you cannot compare your journey or your results with anyone else. When you say you have nothing to show for your efforts and your life has been a failure, all I hear is you apparently got signed up for some really hard classes. But your results here don’t affect or determine your value. You are an irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind, divine, amazing human soul. You are basically an irreplaceable diamond, which has the same value no matter it's setting or where you find it. If a diamond is thrown in the mud, it still has the same value. If it is thrown in the garbage, it still has the same value. You have the same value no matter where you end up. Do you get this? Your journey has nothing to do with your value. Some of us get signed up for harder classes here in the classroom of life than others. I don’t know why things are unfair here, but I believe there is a reason. I’ve often tried to drop a few of my more miserable classes, but apparently they were required courses because the universe didn’t let me out. I was not happy about this, but I realized that stuck in that situation, I only had two choices. I could choose to trust the universe that this difficult path was serving me in some way, focus on the lessons and let the experiences make me better, stronger and more loving, or I could dwell in fear, anger, jealously and bitterness — which would only push other people away and create more negative in my life. These are your only two choices when you are stuck in a required class. I highly recommend choosing trust and love! Here are a couple more things you could do to change your perspective on life: 1) Write down as many positives as you can about what your journey has given you, things you have learned, qualities you have gained, traits you’ve developed. Then write down some things you could be gaining or developing if you tried a little harder. 2) Remember your value is as infinite and absolute as a diamond, no matter your results or performance. Claim your power to determine your own value and see it this way, despite your results. 3) Remember, life is really about what you learn, understand and develop through your experiences. It is not about what a smooth ride you had. It is about who you become on the inside not what you have to show on the outside. 4) Whenever you feel jealous of others, remember that their hard classes are probably still coming and you have things (empathy, understanding and wisdom) they may not have yet. 5) Don’t live to please other people — follow your heart and your intuition. Make sure you are doing what feels right to you in every situation. Honor your truth and your values no matter what. 6) Choose to be grateful for what is good in your life, for every small blessing or moment of happiness. Choose joy in every situation you possibly can. 7) You may not be able to change your situation, but you always have the power to choose how you will experience that situation. There are two choices: fear or trust and love. Fear will create more suffering — trust and love will create peace. You get to decide where you want to live. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way,” Frankl said. He continued, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” I recommend that you work on changing the way you are looking at your life. When you look at it from a new perspective, it may totally change the way you feel. If this is proving difficult, you may want to seek a coach or counselor to help you. I hope this helps. Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of ldslifecoaching.com and claritypointcoaching.com. She is a sought after life coach and popular speaker who specializes in repairing and building self-esteem. Question:
How can person fight anxiety (without the use of medication) when they feel it coming on? I heard there was a way to change your thinking that might help. Can you explain how I can do that? Answer: First, let me clarify that the term “anxiety” can be used to describe a whole range of experiences, from just feeling overwhelmed to serious medical conditions. Anxiety can also be caused by a large number of factors — everything from genetic conditions, brain chemistry problems, substance abuse or just trying to do too much too fast. In this article I am addressing the more common, non-medical condition type. If you suffer from an anxiety disorder, you should talk to a medical professional for advice. The one commonality these anxiety experiences share is that they all get worse when you experience stress. Stress, by the way, is a fear problem. (I know some of my readers are bothered by the fact that I believe every problem is a fear problem, but I assure you it is. If you can't see that yet, keep looking at it.) Facing fear The next time you feel anxiety, ask yourself, “What am I afraid of?” You are either afraid of looking bad, being rejected and failing, or you are afraid of losing something (reputation, money, opportunities, etc.) Once you clearly define the fear, you can process your way out of it with better thinking. Learning how to think situations through in an accurate, positive way will make a huge difference, no matter what kind of anxiety you have (though some forms of anxiety will require medical or professional help along with better thinking). The fastest way to change your thinking is to choose trust in two truths that are the opposite of the two most common fears. The two most common fears that cause anxiety are:
The power of choices Remember: The one power you have in every situation is the power to choose your mindset. We learned this from Victor Frankl, a Viennese psychotherapist who was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. In spite of everything in his life that went wrong, he chose an attitude of trust and love. What many people don’t know about Frankl is that he went on to become the father of logotherapy (a kind of therapy that encourges people to choose how they want to experience each situation). “Logos” is the Greek word that means, “To make meaning out of something.” Frankl believed that you get to decide what each event in your life means, because events don't mean anything until you apply meaning to them. You get to choose your attitude and how every experience will affect your life — but if you don't make this choice, your subconscious mind will choose for you, and it will usually choose fear. Frankl believed that you should reframe each experience in whatever way best serves you (still within the framework of reality, of course). If trusting the process of life and seeing it as a safe process with meaning and purpose gives you peace, you should choose that outlook. I believe choosing to trust that everything happens for a reason serves your process of growth, eliminates fear and makes life better. The formula This is my formula for eliminating anxious thoughts in the moment:
"Nothing in life creates more deep-seated anxieties than the false assumption that life should be free from anxieties and problems." –Unknown You cannot control life and you won't always be able to make it the way you want it, so you might as well just trust it. You can do this. Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of ldslifecoaching.com and claritypointcoaching.com. She is a sought after life coach and popular speaker who specializes in repairing and building self-esteem. |
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AuthorKimberly Giles is the president and founder of Claritypoint Life Coaching and 12 SHAPES INC. She is an author and professional speaker. She was named one of the top 20 advice gurus in the country by Good Morning America in 2010. She appears regularly on local and national TV and Radio. Archives
March 2022
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