Self Awareness is your catalyst for change - Unlocking Possibilities weekly news issue 10

By becoming self aware you gain ownership of reality. In becoming real you become the master of your inner and outer life - Deepak Chopra

Self-awareness is a lifelong journey of delight and discovery. Understanding what makes you tick, being able to emotionally regulate, and understanding the deeper processes of your thinking and motivation behind the decisions you make, enables you to live with more conscious choice and be the creator of your life.

?When I visited Rome, I was fascinated by the discoveries of the incredible ruins that were still being uncovered thousands of years later. Throughout the city, there were careful excavations that revealed the beauty beneath us.

?It reminded me of the depths and resourcefulness of human beings. There is still so much to be discovered about how incredible we are. Everything you need to live an incredible life and to break through your limits is already within you. Like Rome, your own incredible beauty is below the surface waiting for your own excavation.

?Self-awareness Is Your Catalyst for Change

There will have been times in your life when you felt that life was against you. Perhaps several things went wrong in quick succession.

?You might have found yourself wanting to change other people because if they just did as you wanted them to, life would be so much easier. No doubt your expectations of others have sometimes been too high and you have felt let down, unimportant or that they didn’t care about how you felt. You might find yourself being triggered by other people’s behaviour, which winds you up and keeps you feeling irritated and tense.

?‘Awareness is the greatest agent for change.’ - Eckhart Tolle

You possibly believe you are not in control of the decisions in your life as you feel that others are pulling the strings. You are dictated to at work, your family commitments take up a lot of your time, and you don’t want to upset people so you end up saying yes to things you would rather not do.

?Or perhaps people in your past have wronged you which has left you feeling angry or hurt and you still carry the emotional burden around, dragging you down like a weight upon your shoulders.

?You might find yourself lacking in direction and clarity, not knowing which path to take in your life. Perhaps you don’t know what you enjoy, what lights you up or what you are good at. You see others living their best life and wonder what the secret is; you’d like to have some of this too.

There are lots of things in life you can’t control and staying focussed on these things can leave you feeling powerless. Imagine the possibilities, emotional freedom, and lightness in your life when you take back your power and realise that you do have control of how you think, feel and respond to any situation. Self awareness is the key to unlocking your inner power, your potential and all that is available to you.

A personal story

It was the year 2001 when I was training to be a teacher. My first placement was teaching Psychology A level. For the first few months it was going smoothly as the students were well behaved, engaged with my lessons and seemed to enjoy what they were learning. I enjoyed teaching Psychology as this had been my degree subject.

A few months into my teacher training I was asked to teach in the health and social care department where I would deliver some of the Psychology modules and the child development and attachment modules to early years students. I was keen to get as much experience as possible, so it sounded like a great opportunity to experience something different.

?There Is no Failure, Only Feedback

?What I hadn’t realised was that the group of students I was walking into were very different from the A level students and needed different teaching methods to teach them successfully. I felt totally out of my depth and had no idea what to do. I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t just listen and do as they were told.

?I had planned lessons I thought were engaging, only to discover that this group of sixteen-year-olds thought very differently. I was ill prepared for a group of mainly girls who had experienced problems in mainstream school and were switched off to learning. They struggled with building relationships, had very little confidence, and didn’t think much of me (or so I believed).

?You might be familiar with the saying, ‘If what you are doing isn’t working then do something different.’ Back in 2001 I wasn’t familiar with it, so I kept on doing the same thing, hoping to get a different result. My behaviour was more in line with, ‘If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got.’ I kept on getting disengaged learners, poor behaviour in my classroom and increasing stress levels.

?I had expectations that they would do as I asked and the classroom would be a nice place for everyone. I felt frustrated that my students weren’t playing ball and wouldn’t change their behaviour. Back then I lacked the self awareness skills to observe my own thinking and behaviours to investigate how I might have been contributing to the situation. I was stuck in focussing my attention on the problem rather than exploring possible outcomes and how I could change to get a better result.

?Colleague to the Rescue

?Over lunch one day, a colleague told me he had recently completed a life-changing course. He said he had learned things about himself and about others that he hadn’t even considered and that it was the ‘practical psychology’ of human behaviour. The course was in neuro-linguistic programming. I didn’t need much convincing as I could hear from the way he talked that it had made a big impact on his life. I was desperate and willing to try anything so I booked on the next course.

?NLP – the Difference that Makes the Difference.

?After leaving education in 2017, I became an NLP trainer myself. On one of my first diploma courses, a student suddenly jumped up and blurted out, ‘It’s me,’ with a huge smile on her face. She had just realised that everything started with her.

?I remembered having that feeling on the first day of the NLP course I attended back in 2002. I turned up with the expectation that I would learn some incredible and life-changing information and tools that I could use to change others. I was looking forward to learning how to wave a magic wand so that all the young people in my classroom would behave and listen and my stress would dissolve. If I could just get them to change, I would love my job and everything would be ok. This was not what I learned.

?The light bulb moment

• I learned that everything started with me.
• I learned that if I wanted to influence someone else or change a situation, the person that had to change was me.
• I learned that I couldn’t change others but that I had a choice about how I thought, felt and responded in a situation.
• I learned that it was my perception of a situation and the meaning I attached to it that impacted how I felt and how I reacted.
• I learned that everyone is different and that just because I believed something was important or interesting, it didn’t mean someone else felt the same.
• ?I learned that we all process the world around us in different ways and that we all focus on different things. When I communicated something to my students, the response I got was my clue as to whether I had communicated in a way they understood or not. If they did not understand my teaching methods, it was my responsibility to change my teaching methods to get the response I wanted.
• I learned that everyone sees the world through a different lens and that whilst my lens seems perfectly clear to me, it might not be clear to others. The success of my relationships lay in how I was able to communicate my lens and understand someone else’s.
• I learned that to change behaviour in my classroom, I had to be the change.

This was the beginning of my self awareness journey and I am grateful that I now get to teach NLP to others helping them on their journey of self awareness, and improving theirs and others lives.

If you would like to start your own journey than a grab a copy of my best selling book KISS Your life - the CALM guide to keeping your life successfully simple HERE

?Unlocking Possibilities with NLP & Coaching Podcast

The Power of self coaching

Have you ever wondered how to you can feel better every day? Do you have days that feel hard and wish you knew how to make them feel lighter??

‘It’s not what happens to you, it’s how you react to it that matters’ Epictetus famously quoted. These words of wisdom are all good and well, but HOW do you learn to find ways of reacting to life in a way that maintains your mental wellness, happiness and success?

At the heart of coaching is self coaching. Learning how to train your thinking, your emotions and responses is the biggest gift you can give yourself in life. Knowing that you always have CHOICE is ultimate emotional freedom. Practicing self coaching every day is a skill that needs to be nurtured and harnessed with intention and conscious choice.?

In this episode I share some insights and thoughts about how NLP can support you bringing harmony and delight to your life through the power of self coaching.

Listen on Apple or SPOTIFY or watch on YOUTUBE

The Coaching Industry is growing and changing FAST

Thanks to neuroscience and psychology we have so much more information about how incredible we are as human beings and how we can unlock our inner brilliance!

The coaching world is changing and people want more than the old paradigm of goal setting, GROW model and questioning techniques.

These all still have a place and can be greatly enhanced by weaving in methods that harness intuition, emotions and the intelligence of the body.

Neuroscience has proven that that we have brains in our body that have their own functions and behavioural expressions. ??

When the nervous system is out of balance and the brains are not aligned, some of these behavioural expressions might include

? procrastination

? behaviours

? scattered and unfocused thinking

? indecision

? poor communication

When the nervous system is in a coherent and optimum state and the brains are aligned then behavioural expressions include ??

?? achieving goals successfully

?? creative thinking and problem solving

?? clear and focussed thinking

??action taking and decision making

?? effective communication and positive relationships

This coaching and leadership method mBIT (multiple brain integration techniques) is NEW and exciting and so far we have a community of 3500 coaches working globally!

mBIT - multiple brain integration techniques is a methodology for personal evolution, emergent wisdom and transformational change! It's a modern methodology based on cutting edge findings in neuroscience and Psychology.

You can watch the replay of the masterclass HERE

My next four day mBIT certification is November 14-17th at my training venue in Blackpool. You can find out more here HERE or email [email protected] to request a call to find out more.

mBIT for organisations

I also deliver this certification in house to coaches working within organisations. The 30 hour certification can be delivered over four consecutive days or divided into 2 x 2 days. If your organisation has a coaching culture and you want your coaches and leaders to be trained in the highest standards, and lead in the industry then this is for you.

Book a call by texting mBIT and your name to 07791260082

Essential Coaching skills for transformational leadership 2 day course Sept 24-25th

I’m looking for 8 business leaders/owners who want to be a transformational leader as a coach harnessing their brain and body intelligence (head, heart and gut) to be part of a revolutionary leadership programme

This will be a 2 day course at my training venue in Blackpool investment ￡397.

Day 1:

Explore the neuroscience and Psychology of your multiple brains and learn how to harness your intelligence within them for ??

• effective communication with yourself and others
• decision making
• problem solving and innovative thinking
• productivity and high performance
• managing risk and taking action
• navigating change successfully

Learn about the role of the nervous system and how it impacts thinking, emotions and behaviour. Learn practical methods to optimise your nervous system to enable the wisdom of your multiple brains to emerge.

Day 2:

Learn a suite of practical tools to ??

• Use coaching questions that move people towards outcomes and unlocking their potential
• Be present and aware enabling deeper communication, rapport and opportunities for personal and professional growth
• Increase performance, engagement, productivity and success
• Improve wellbeing, relationships and overall satisfaction at work

This 2 day course is experiential and practical showing you how to unlock your own potential as a leader so that you can lead others successfully.

When and where:

There are only 8 places available 24th - 25th September 9.30-5pm at Unlocking Possibilities training venue, 166 Waterloo Road Blackpool, FY4 2AF . Free parking and lunch is included.

This is not a traditional leadership style profiling course. You will be gaining self awareness and diagnosing your dominant and less dominant brains in your leadership style and the autonomic nervous system mode that you operate from. You will learn how this impacts your decision making, communication, action taking and results and how you can operate more successfully.

Book your place HERE or contact [email protected] if you would like to jump on a call to find out more.

You can watch the YOUTUBE video of senior leader Anne Kyle talking about her use of this method within her school HERE

AUTUMN NLP training

We are very muck looking forward to our NLP schedule of trainings coming up in Autumn

?? NLP Foundations

We have two NLP Diploma courses running as hybrid programmes. TODAY ONLY as a bank holiday BONANZA there is ￡50 OFF the September NLP course.

Find out more HERE

?? NLP Practitioner virtual live

The Full NLP Practitioner online runs live for 10 days October 1-3, Nov 4-6, Dec 2-5.

The days are 9.30-5.30pm and meet the requirements for the ANLP certified NLP practitioner certification. This is for leaders, coaches, educators, mentors, HR professionals, business owners, therapists and anyone who wants to elevate their own personal and professional life and help others to elevate theirs.

BONUS courses include the NLP coaching fundamentals and NLP for success. Both of these courses can be accessed via your online portal.

Investment ￡1997 can be paid in full or instalments over 6 months. Book in your call by texting 07791260082 with your name and NLP.

In house training

Both of these courses can be delivered in house as full courses or as workshops created to meet the needs of your organisation, Examples of workshops include

• communication and fostering positive relationships
• Essential coaching skills for leaders
• Taking care of mental wellness for for personal and professional success
• Unlocking potential

To chat about any of these options e mail [email protected] or call 07791260082

FREE NLP series

If you haven't already signed up for the FREE online NLP series on 9/10th September then you can register your place HERE

Thank you once again for taking the time to read our news and we look forward to getting to know you and meeting you soon ??

Sarah and the Unlocking Possibilities team