Hi,
A warm welcome to everyone to this first blog post.
Wow! It’s February already and I have only just got to grips with this new website and how to create and publish a blog. I hope you like it.
If you are struggling with motivation right now - whether it's to keeping on top of your email inbox, maintaining a healthy diet, or something else - this post might help.
It can be so difficult to motivate ourselves to do things we know need doing but don’t enjoy. Even trickier to motivate ourselves to do something we actively dislike. Reframing is an incredibly useful skill that helps re-ignite motivation and chase away negativity. What's more, it doesn't require hypnosis to access (although it can be even more powerful if used as part of a hypnotherapy session). I’ve used my recent experience of relaunching Altered Awareness to illustrate how it can be used.
Relaunching has been both exciting and a bit scary. It has been wonderful to have the time to brush up on my knowledge, engage in new training, and hone my therapeutic skills. I absolutely love learning, especially if it involves discovering new ways to help people resolve emotional issues. This meant that the most natural place for me to start with a relaunch was to book myself on a few courses.
It felt great! I was particularly excited about the Hypnomenopause training and loved the course. I had some fantastic feedback from people who attended preliminary sessions so I was really looking forward to helping more women make the most of this stage in their lives. Another area I enjoyed further training in was Trauma Resolution. The course was highly informative and packed full of useful techniques and backed up with research.
I loved studying. I felt energised by learning more about the power of the mind and became engrossed in the different therapeutic approaches. I was in my ‘happy place’, my mental and emotional nourishment, my self-energiser.
In comparison, the nuts and bolts of building a website, marketing strategies, and social media platforms filled me with dread. I found myself avoiding tasks that involved using tech. I came up with excuses as and started to procrastinate.
I felt overwhelmed and drained just by thinking about any of that ‘stuff’. Even worse, I began to doubt myself.
Overthinking became more prevalent.
What if the website is rubbish?
What will I do if no-one likes my Facebook page?
Which area should I focus on for the leaflets?
The more I thought, the less I did. The less I did, the more scared I became of failing.
To cheer myself up I booked myself on another course. It was brilliant! I got stuck into the course and immediately felt better.
Fortunately for me the course was about how language affects behaviour, how the things we tell ourselves can support or limit us. This triggered a light-bulb moment. I realised I had fallen into a trap of my own making. But I knew what I needed to do to resolve it.
Reframing was the solution to my technological issues. The website wasn’t my enemy. My aversion to marketing wasn’t because I wasn't any good at it. The reluctance to promote my business wasn’t due to lack of energy. It was all down to the stories I was telling myself about what I was and wasn’t capable of.
I just needed to reframe them so that my mind could relate to them in a more positive way.
The first step was to recognise that my problems stemmed from not knowing enough, or understanding enough, about how it all works. I needed to learn about it. What is one of the things I love most in life?
Learning!
It was as simple as that.
With the reframe completed I happily booked myself onto a marketing and branding course and set about reading up on website design and blogging. Immediately the thing I had been avoiding became my new hobby. What’s more, I was energised by the prospect of all that learning.
Reframing is a useful tool used in NLP and CBT. The NHS website has a breakdown of 6 step reframing here.
You can reframe pretty much anything with a little practice. In the past I have reframed boring, repetitive chores by treating them as an opportunity to practise Mindfulness. Instead of rushing to get it done in as little time as possible I fully immersed myself in the rhythmic chopping of vegetables, noticing all the colours, textures, and sounds in front of me. The chore transformed from something to get through as quickly as possible into something interesting and relaxing.
Sometimes we stumble across a reframe by accident;
the long journey to a holiday destination that you somehow made one of the highlights of the trip,
the difficult conversation you were dreading that you approached differently which helped take the edge off,
that time you managed to talk yourself into getting off the sofa and go for a walk instead of eating a snack.
Once you know what a reframe is and how they work you can quickly spot more opportunities to use it.
Why not give reframing a go?
Let me know how you get on in the comments.
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