Motivation Tips
Imagine a room with all your favourite things in it. The curtains are drawn over the windows and you can hear no noise from outside your room, but you don’t mind - you are busy looking at your familiar objects, listening to familiar sounds. All you need is in the room - you have no reason to leave it. It contains everything you know to be true, every experience you have ever had, every memory you have that makes you feel safe, secure, at peace. Occasionally you have ventured outside but it was too scary, too unknown for you so you came running back into your room, closing the door behind you with a sigh of relief.
Welcome to your Comfort Zone
In this place, you know every noise, every vision, every thought, every feeling. Nothing scares you or takes you by surprise more than you can handle. Nothing makes you challenge what you know to be true. Its whole purpose is to make you feel that the world is not a strange and scary place.
Bored yet?
Many people will be happy to stay in this room, not wanting anything other than what it provides. But you want to experience more, knowing that there is more to discover about the world and yourself. So how can you open the door with confidence rather than fear?
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
When taking on a new challenge, it is easy to be daunted by the thought of what you will have to face. But no matter how big the goal you have set yourself, you can still only walk one step at a time. Therefore, don’t worry about the final goal. Break it down into smaller, more manageable tasks that are not so intimidating. This way, you enjoy success many times in the future - for each step that you complete and for the ultimate goal.
It also means that your comfort zone is stretched slowly. Go back to our room. One step at a time, you could discover the adjoining room. Then maybe you look at the next one along, safe in the knowledge that your own room is not that far away. As soon as you feel comfortable in that room, maybe you venture upstairs. Soon enough, you have explored every other room without feeling overwhelmed or too far from where you feel safe. Now, instead of a comfort zone of one room, you feel comfortable in the whole house! Yet none of it would have been possible without that first step outside the door.
Think of someone who already has the kind of life you want. If you look at how they have achieved this, there are a lot of pieces to it: their behaviour, their attitude, their confidence, the amount of effort they are prepared to put in, the support they had. The list is endless. What was it about them that ultimately gave them the success? How would you go about acquiring the same? When faced with such a situation a simple exercise is to think “What would x do?” Then, do it!! This is called modelling, a technique used by motivational coaches such as Anthony Robbins to achieve success quicker by adopting the skills and behaviours of those who have already got there.
What if you don’t feel that you can do what they did? You have two options - work out what is stopping you from being like them and then work on changing this. Or, as the saying goes, “Fake it until you make it” - just pretend! If you act as if you have those behaviours, sooner or later, without you noticing, you really will!
In these days of stressed out executives and celebrities, it is easy to think that all stress is bad for you. But this is wrong. There are proven health benefits from putting yourself under controlled pressure - the problems arise when the pressure you are feeling is out of control or simply too much. Get the right balance and you truly identify your potential to achieve your goals and so much more.
Challenging yourself, both physically and emotionally can lead to a happier, more fulfilled life. When you prove to yourself that you are capable of so much more than you are doing now, your self-esteem soars and your confidence takes you further and further.
Knowing you are capable of more yet doing nothing about it leads to frustration, envy and disappointment. You must take ACTION on your dreams if you will ever know what you can become.
Ready to Move Out?
Take a look around your room once more. Are you ready to open the curtains, to take a peek outside to a future that awaits you? Are you looking at the door, thinking about opening and maybe taking one or two steps outside? With the right attitude, support and belief that you can achieve anything you want, you can.
Come on - the world is waiting ...
Hi, I’m Lee Lam and I am a Professional Confidence Coach. I run Right Key Coaching which was established three years ago. I find it fascinating that people are coming to realise that the quest for material wealth and social recognition is not actually making them happy at all – instead it tends to bring its own set of problems. Clients I have worked with all have one thing in common – they are fed up with their life as it is now and they are ready to make a change. I am so privileged to be in their lives at this time, as they really review their life and what it means to them.
To see the transformation to their spirits as they start to understand what they are capable of is absolutely mind-blowing. I have worked with some fundamentally awe-inspiring people, who have had the courage to work towards their dreams and I consider it my honour to be involved in that process.
