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Article | We need to stop hiding in the shadows!
I recently sat down with a lovely glass of wine and my bullet journal to reflect on what success actually means to me. I mean I don’t remember ever really thinking about this before and yet I’ve spent a good part of my life working towards this abstract goal of...
Article | What the hell is success anyway?
I recently sat down with a lovely glass of wine and my bullet journal to reflect on what success actually means to me. I mean I don’t remember ever really thinking about this before and yet I’ve spent a good part of my life working towards this abstract goal of...
Article | Your’ve been together how long?
My husband and I recently celebrated 21 years together, yes 21 years since our very first kiss. Some hear this and are immediately appalled, “21 years with the same person?” While others are in awe, “21 years with the same person?” Same words, very different tone and...
Article | We need to stop hiding in the shadows!
I recently sat down with a lovely glass of wine and my bullet journal to reflect on what success actually means to me. I mean I don’t remember ever really thinking about this before and yet I’ve spent a good part of my life working towards this abstract goal of success… but what does success even mean?
I realized that in my mind the idea I had of success was being married, having kids, a nice home, a good job and enough money for the odd family holiday. Where had this idea come from? Was it my mother, my grandmother, or society? I have no idea, and yet I realized I’ve been pretty clear in my mind when it came to why I had been working so hard to achieve my goals and yet it was so abstract… married or happily married? Kids, yeah sure but how many? A good job and a nice house, by whose standards?
Even more interesting was that when I got real with myself and really thought about what success actually means to me it was so much simpler than that. Success was simply living my life on my terms! Yeah it was still pretty vague, so I had to dig deeper. It was time to think about my values and beliefs, what were they and how were they connected to my view of success? Which ones were mine and what had I simply acquired magically by osmosis somewhere along the way.
More often than not, we tend to think of values as a religious thing that’s connected intrinsically with our morals. Values are really personal and indicate what is truly important to us, they are the drivers that influence the decisions we make and the way we live our lives.
What many don’t know is that there are different types of values. Values are either moving you towards or away from something. For example trust, honesty and integrity are values that are often adopted to move you away from hurt or an experience where, those values were not present. While connection, compassion and growth are values that have you focusing on qualities that you alone can influence and are supporting you to move closer to living a more fulfilling life.
Reflecting on our beliefs on the other hand, is like opening Pandora’s box. There are layers of beliefs that influence our feelings, thoughts, actions and even how we experience our world. There are five layers of beliefs, which fit into each other like Russian dolls, supporting and strengthening each other.
The first one (or the biggest Russian doll) is ‘global beliefs’. These beliefs are the way we view the world and are often sweeping generalizations. Global beliefs are characterized by unspoken internal assumptions people make, for example “Life Is” or “People Are”.
The second type is ‘Identity beliefs’ which we can often identify simply by finishing the statement “I am”, for example “I am a religious person” or “I am a good person”.
The third type of beliefs are what we call in the coaching world ‘vehicle beliefs’. These are more around the roles we take on to experience life like our career, role, relationship etc such as ‘mother’, ‘manager’ or the role of ‘wife’. To identify what your vehicle beliefs are, you only need to reflect on all the different metaphorical hats you wear in your life. An example would be when someone is asked “tell me about you” and instead of telling them about who they are as a person they list “I am a mother, wife, teacher and Gardener” – the focus is on the what not the who.
Hiding within the ‘vehicle beliefs’ you find the fourth type ‘value beliefs’. These help you to elicit what is truly important to you and how you prioritize your time and energy. These are important and lasting beliefs or ideals about what is good or bad and desirable or undesirable. Values have major influence on a person’s behavior and attitude to life.
Finally inside this one you find a sneaky surprise, the fifth and final belief type is ‘Rule beliefs’. These are the rules you place around your values to protect them. What is really interesting, is that although you are likely to have never thought about what your personal values or rules might be, you would know very quickly when someone challenges or disrespects them, as this is when we experience agitation or frustration. A simple example is when a young person doesn’t give up a seat on public transport for a elderly person causing frustration to bubble up in you – this indicates that you have a value for respect for elders and offering up your seat for them is a rule you have created to support that.
I personally thoroughly enjoyed taking the time to reflect on what was important to me and what ‘success’ really means to ME, I realized I am actually a lot closer to my idea of success than I thought. I encourage you to take some time to reflect on your own understanding of success and what your personal values/beliefs truly are… you might be pleasantly surprised at what you find.
If you would like to learn more about any of the above content and dive deeper into what makes you tick then please contact us today and book an appointment. Rebecca Matthews, The Mind and Body Co
www.themindandbodyco.com
Article | What the hell is success anyway?
I recently sat down with a lovely glass of wine and my bullet journal to reflect on what success actually means to me. I mean I don’t remember ever really thinking about this before and yet I’ve spent a good part of my life working towards this abstract goal of success… but what does success even mean?
I realized that in my mind the idea I had of success was being married, having kids, a nice home, a good job and enough money for the odd family holiday. Where had this idea come from? Was it my mother, my grandmother, or society? I have no idea, and yet I realized I’ve been pretty clear in my mind when it came to why I had been working so hard to achieve my goals and yet it was so abstract… married or happily married? Kids, yeah sure but how many? A good job and a nice house, by whose standards?
Even more interesting was that when I got real with myself and really thought about what success actually means to me it was so much simpler than that. Success was simply living my life on my terms! Yeah it was still pretty vague, so I had to dig deeper. It was time to think about my values and beliefs, what were they and how were they connected to my view of success? Which ones were mine and what had I simply acquired magically by osmosis somewhere along the way.
More often than not, we tend to think of values as a religious thing that’s connected intrinsically with our morals. Values are really personal and indicate what is truly important to us, they are the drivers that influence the decisions we make and the way we live our lives.
What many don’t know is that there are different types of values. Values are either moving you towards or away from something. For example trust, honesty and integrity are values that are often adopted to move you away from hurt or an experience where, those values were not present. While connection, compassion and growth are values that have you focusing on qualities that you alone can influence and are supporting you to move closer to living a more fulfilling life.
Reflecting on our beliefs on the other hand, is like opening Pandora’s box. There are layers of beliefs that influence our feelings, thoughts, actions and even how we experience our world. There are five layers of beliefs, which fit into each other like Russian dolls, supporting and strengthening each other.
The first one (or the biggest Russian doll) is ‘global beliefs’. These beliefs are the way we view the world and are often sweeping generalizations. Global beliefs are characterized by unspoken internal assumptions people make, for example “Life Is” or “People Are”.
The second type is ‘Identity beliefs’ which we can often identify simply by finishing the statement “I am”, for example “I am a religious person” or “I am a good person”.
The third type of beliefs are what we call in the coaching world ‘vehicle beliefs’. These are more around the roles we take on to experience life like our career, role, relationship etc such as ‘mother’, ‘manager’ or the role of ‘wife’. To identify what your vehicle beliefs are, you only need to reflect on all the different metaphorical hats you wear in your life. An example would be when someone is asked “tell me about you” and instead of telling them about who they are as a person they list “I am a mother, wife, teacher and Gardener” – the focus is on the what not the who.
Hiding within the ‘vehicle beliefs’ you find the fourth type ‘value beliefs’. These help you to elicit what is truly important to you and how you prioritize your time and energy. These are important and lasting beliefs or ideals about what is good or bad and desirable or undesirable. Values have major influence on a person’s behavior and attitude to life.
Finally inside this one you find a sneaky surprise, the fifth and final belief type is ‘Rule beliefs’. These are the rules you place around your values to protect them. What is really interesting, is that although you are likely to have never thought about what your personal values or rules might be, you would know very quickly when someone challenges or disrespects them, as this is when we experience agitation or frustration. A simple example is when a young person doesn’t give up a seat on public transport for a elderly person causing frustration to bubble up in you – this indicates that you have a value for respect for elders and offering up your seat for them is a rule you have created to support that.
I personally thoroughly enjoyed taking the time to reflect on what was important to me and what ‘success’ really means to ME, I realized I am actually a lot closer to my idea of success than I thought. I encourage you to take some time to reflect on your own understanding of success and what your personal values/beliefs truly are… you might be pleasantly surprised at what you find.
If you would like to learn more about any of the above content and dive deeper into what makes you tick then please contact us today and book an appointment.
Rebecca Matthews, The Mind and Body Co
www.themindandbodyco.com
Article | Your’ve been together how long?
My husband and I recently celebrated 21 years together, yes 21 years since our very first kiss. Some hear this and are immediately appalled, “21 years with the same person?” While others are in awe, “21 years with the same person?” Same words, very different tone and meaning!
I think its pretty safe to say that everyone, whether in a relationship or not is in agreement that relationships are challenging, you have to consider another human being in everything, make allowances, create space and accommodate the needs of someone other than yourself.
Based on some recent learning, what ultimately decides the fate of a relationship (and by this I don’t simply mean will it survive or not, I also mean will it be a healthy, fulfilling, thriving relationship) is determined by how you both show up in the relationship for example if one person is doing all of the above and the other isn’t… you might still get ‘forever after’ but ‘happily’ is highly unlikely.
There are a few key factors that need to be addressed if a relationship is going to stand the test of time and they are really not that complicated, in fact the first one is super simple – eradicate the idea of perfection in a relationship, it is unattainable and super dysfunction to strive for!
The second thing is we need to get real with ourselves and what we bring to the relationship, yes we are pretty great but that’s not enough for someone to want to be with us forever is it? However if we focus on our partner, on how we can make their lives more meaningful and enriched for having us in it then that just might.
Of course like most things in a relationship reciprocity is key, by this I do not mean a score keeping tactic of, ‘if I do this for you then you do that for me’, reciprocity in the relationship context means, ‘I will show you love, compassion and respect in a way you need to feel safe/secure in our relationship and you in return will show me in a way I need to feel safe/secure in our relationship’.
Obviously for a couple to successfully engage relationship reciprocity first you need to know what the hell each other needs in the first place, which brings us to the classic relationship advice of communication… easy for some while others would opt for pins under their nails! Communication in order to maintain a healthy relationship doesn’t have to be scary.
Some simple tips to get you started:
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Identify your ‘love language’. We all give and receive love in different ways so you might be effectively talking different languages. I highly recommend reading the book and taking the 5 Love Languages® assessment to discover your love language and begin improving your relationships. https://www.5lovelanguages.com/
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Share what the end game looks like. Things might be great now but work out what you are both wanting from life in 10, 20 or even 30 years from now. You might have different ideas on how to get there but if you can at least hold onto the fact that you are both working towards the same goal it helps ride some of those inevitable bumps in the road.
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Find your relationship role models. Unfortunately not many of us come from happy functional families which means many of us don’t grow up with great relationship role models to learn from. If you don’t know what a healthy, functional, loving relationship looks like then how can you achieve it? As a couple take some time to think about who you might be unconsciously modelling off and then together find role models you can both agree on that have the kind of relationship you both want.
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Be prepared to do the work. We all come into relationships as individuals with our own thoughts, opinions, ambitions etc and time doesn’t stop when one becomes two so its only logical that we will continue to grow and change as time goes on. You both need to be prepared to continue to learn and grow yourself so you continue to be the best version of yourself and you also need to support your partner to do the same. In the simplest of sense your partner should never want to change you to be someone you’re not but you should want to change to be a better you and a better partner!
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Hold the space. We all process information and change at different rates and in different ways, so it is crucial when having important conversations both parties have the time they need to process the information and articulate their response appropriately. Rather than jumping to conclusions when you don’t get the response you expected or wanted, hold the space for your partner to process the conversation in their own time. Not everyone can process quick fire questions and decision making, you may need to put a pin in the conversation and come back to it.
My husband and I have had an amazing 21 (and counting) years together, neither of us is perfect but I believe the main reason we have gotten through those pesky ups and downs is that when things got really hard we were both willing to look inward and identify where we needed to grow which leads me to my final tip… when things get really hard, I mean the, ‘what the hell am I still doing here’ hard, before you throw in the towel and head for the door, stop, take a good look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are honestly giving the very best of yourself to this relationship? Because if you know you can do better then do it now in this relationship, don’t plan to do it better in the next one!
Call to action: If you would like to know more about how working with a personal coach can help you show up in a more meaningful way in your relationships please contact me at info@themindandbodyco.com
Rebecca Matthews, The Mind and Body Co
www.themindandbodyco.com