How Sophie transformed her life!

I can’t do this, I’m not confident, I’m not good enough………..?

It’s natural to have thoughts like these as it’s the brain's way of protecting us and keeping us safe, but sometimes negative thoughts are like our favourite songs, we play them over and over. They become the soundtrack to our lives and we hear them so much that we actually believe them.?

My client Sophie was riddled with thoughts like these every day, The littlest thing like forgetting to respond to an email was the start of a catastrophic thought process. This one thing triggered, thoughts like; "What if my boss fires me?", "What if I can’t afford the rent?", "What if there is no money to live?". Her mind was spiraling out of control, she was visualising hypothetical situations with very bleak outcomes. Not only that, it was happening so frequently that this process had become habitual and it had started to affect how she lived her life.?

The first thing we worked on was getting her to listen to the voice in her head which was creating the negative thoughts, every time it started she wrote what she heard down on a pad. Our head voice is like a person who wants to get their opinion heard. It starts off persistently pressing, then when you ignore it, it starts shouting till you take notice! But by listening to the thought early, you acknowledge it, which calms it down and reduces the catastrophising.?

The next thing Sophie did was write down how the thoughts made her feel, she would use words like sad, anxious, demotivated, and overwhelmed. Doing this helped her to understand what the effect was on her mood. She was shocked to see the connection between the thoughts and how it was making her feel. Honestly, her inner voice was a bully, it made her feel she was the worst person in the world. If someone had spoken to her in the outside world in that way, she would have reported them for harassment!

The third thing she wrote down was how the feelings were making her behave at work and with her family and friends. She described herself as short-tempered, unreliable, and a procrastinator.?

When we analysed where her behaviors were coming from she could see there was a direct series of consequences that started with her thoughts. By explaining it in this way she could create a plan to flip the script in her head.?

It started with scoring out the negative thought she had written down and changing it to a positive one. Her go-to thought was that she was not good enough at her job, she felt like a fraud and it meant she was not putting herself forward for promotions.

The trick is to retrain your brain to create new beliefs and form positive habits. Yes, you’ve guessed it, when she changed her thoughts to,? "I'm really good at my job", she felt more confident and of course, she not only applied for the promotion, she got it. BOOM!!?

This method is not a magic bullet, like everything you need to practice, but if you take one step at a time, one day at a time, gradually you will realise just as Sophie did, you can do this, you are confident and you are good enough. The main person you need to convince is YOU!?