The past month has seen Find Your Spark travelling across London, Suffolk, Essex and even to France in order to deliver conferences, trainings and presentations on the effectiveness of coaching and positive psychology for at risk young people.
We have picked up a lot of tips and learning along the way, for example when speaking at the European Positive Psychology Conference we learnt that:
1)Psychological wellbeing is critical for recovery from mood and anxiety disorders and absence of creates conditions of vulnerability to future adversity and depression. Low level psychological wellbeing often leads to suicide
2) Eudaimonic wellbeing should be taught at primary school
3) Positive Psychology is gaining acceptance in Europe and courses are being run in countries such as Switzerland and Denmark…
All interesting stuff. Something else that we learnt from the experience that we were not expecting and did not pick up through attending a key note or seminar but from the actual experience as a whole, was that in order to gain confidence, you have to take action.
Increasing your confidence will not come from reading a book, talking to someone else, watching a video or reciting affirmations (although these will certainly help). Confidence comes from doing.
We have experience of working with people who are incredibly anxious about upcoming events and therefore put things off and procrastinate due to the fear of the unknown. Its only when the ‘unknown’ occurs and people get through it, do they realise that there was nothing to be scared of in the first place!
People build things up in their heads to be far worse than they actually are. The thought is far worse than the experience. This is why we not only have to work on the thoughts but also the experience. They say, change your thoughts, change your life. I say, the more you experience, the more you grow and the more you grow, the more confident you will become (not quite as catchy but you catch my drift!)
So, stretch out of your comfort zone today. Do that one thing that you have been putting off for months be it ask for a pay rise, visit a place you have never experienced before or speak to the person you really fancy. Its only through these experiences that you will truly live and experience life to the full and that’s what life is all about right?!
Let me know how you get on in the comments below or contact me direct especially if you find yourself struggling with this. The art of coaching is all about raising your awareness to promote growth so having a coach is instrumental to making change happen.
As always, I would love to hear from you. I also plan on doing a vlog on this subject too so stay tuned for that and if you got value from this, please share it with others.
Until next time, take care 🙂