I have recently reposted a video on social media which I recorded last year where I talk about surviving an abusive marriage and how one word completely changed the direction of my life. This was such a catalyst for me in what was a very difficult and challenging time of my life. But it allowed me to change things for the better and to enable me to move forward and create the life I want and move away from the one that was not serving me in any way.

A few years back I was in a completely different place to where I am now. I was in an abusive marriage and I was also stressed to the hilt in a very stressful job I didn’t enjoy. I worked with high risk offenders. I would typically manage lifers, sex offenders, drug dealers and violent offenders. In addition, I was silently suffering in a marriage. The whole thing put my on a downward spiral to disaster. I found myself at the lowest ebb of my life. So I went to see a therapist.

I had also just walked out of a job I couldn’t handle any more due to the stresses and demands, in addition to an awful marriage. It was 6pm on a Friday night and I had a decision to make. A big one that was to change the direction of my life forever.

As I was about to leave my first session the therapist turned and said to me, “There is one word you’ve said about 20 times today”. I couldn’t think for the life of me what it was, I was racking my brains. He then continued, “You keep saying the word ‘try’.”

He elaborated further – “If you keep saying the word ‘try’ to yourself what does it mean?”. I stared at him blankly, still puzzled. He went on to explain. “If we decided to meet for a coffee tomorrow night at 6pm, then if I said to you, Oh I will try and get there if I can, then what does that say to you? …as opposed to, I will be there for 6pm tomorrow night, I’ll look forward to seeing you then.”

It began to resonant with me what point this wonderful man was attempting to explain. “If we say we are going to try and do something, what does it really mean? It really means we are going to be late at best, or something else more important might come up. Whereas if we say we are going to do something, without the word ‘try’ in there, it is most likely we will follow through with this decision”.

It was as if a lightbulb had gone off in my head.

This point is two-fold. If we are telling ourselves something such as I will ‘try’, then this potentially gives ourselves an excuse to get out of whatever we need to (to keep ourselves safe and to not push us out of our comfort zones). What it also does is allow us to recognise what underlying subconscious patterns are running below the surface that perhaps aren’t serving us any more.

“So what are your plans now?” the therapist enquired as I was about to leave. I had just walked out of a stressful job I no longer wanted to be in, and I had big decisions to make about this marriage I was still stuck in. So I replied, “Well, I’m going to relax over the weekend and not do too much (I was physically, psychologically and emotionally exhausted) and then on Monday i’m going to tr……” as the word try automatically nearly fell out of my mouth! The therapist looked at me. As he did I quickly corrected myself. I then said “On Monday I’m going to….” And that was it there and then. I had agreed to make this decision to make the appropriate choice for me.

This conversation was about to change my life, forever.

I firmly believe if we had not had this conversation, I would have stayed on the old path. I would have returned to the ex, abusive husband, I would have most probably returned to my old job that I didn’t enjoy and was super stressful. It also made me realise I had been saying for many years, I will try and do this and try and do that, thus giving myself a cop-out or an excuse to not do something.

So notice what you say to yourself. Are you making excuses? Are you self-sabotaging? Do you use words that get out of making decisions? Are you stopping yourself from achieving the full success and potential you deserve?

As a direct result of this conversation, I created an opportunity for myself. Two days later I booked a flight. By the end of that week I had started my 3 week exploration around Vietnam as a solo traveller.

I can honestly say, it was one of the most liberating experiences of my life.

I walked right back into my life there and then. And I have never once looked back. I learnt skills, tools and techniques that would shape and change my life forever. It gave me a completely new understanding.

I am now super fortunate to be able to teach this skills and techniques now as part of my job, which I am extremely passionate about. I teach mindset strategies to clients which are absolute game changers and lead to life transformations.

I want to finish by allowing you to consider the following: –

• Notice what you say to yourself. Become aware of the unconscious. Become aware of the habitual patterns and familiar things you say to yourself. It could be ‘try’, it could be something else. Become conscious. It is only then we will start to make changes and explore at a deeper level what we say to ourselves.

• When you explore this further, notice what patterns and subconscious beliefs are underlying this. How are you stopping yourself moving forward to achieve exactly what you want?

• Most people are walking around in what I call the BS – Big Snooze. We are not conscious of our thoughts and feelings. The more we start to get off automatic, the quicker we will notice big changes and shifts.

• Make a firm intention to change the underlying thought patterns. Face challenges. Don’t give yourself an excuse to opt out. Whats the worse that can happen?

• If there are subconscious programmes and beliefs going on underneath, what are you going to do to change it? Mindset shifts can lead to massive changes. Every action is underpinned by a thought!

Please do keep me updated on how you are doing and I look forward to hearing from you!

Janine is the founder of Change for Success. She specialises in working with people to transform their lives. She does this by helping them overcome stress, anxiety and depression. She works with private clients at her consulting rooms in Manchester city centre. She also runs stress management workshops and helps companies and organisations improve their performance by reducing stress in the workplace.

Check out her website for more information and to see what others have said –

www.changeforsuccess.co.uk/testimonials

So Christmas is meant to be a special time. The time of year to spend time with family and loved ones, a time to be merry and be full of festive cheer. It’s also a time for reflection as we move into the new year.

However there is often so much pressure placed on us, whether it’s via the media or other channels to supposedly have this perfect time. In addition, there is a perceived need to have lots of additional expenditure during this season.

Christmas is not a fun time for all. It can be a time when certain feelings or past events can be triggered. It can be a time where undue pressure becomes too much. It can also be a time where memories come to the surface, which can make it a testing time for many.

In addition, the weeks leading up to Christmas are the most likely time of the year for relationships to end – clearly additional pressure is being placed on relationships at this time. It is understood that December 11th, shortly coming up, is the busiest day of the year for couples to split up. Data has shown that two weeks before Christmas Day is the day of the year when most couples decide to end their relationship.

The lead up to Christmas also has huge issues for many evoking incredibly high levels of stress and depression. Hospitals and police forces report high incidences of suicide and attempted suicide at this time of year. Psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals report a significant increase in patients complaining about depression.

We live in an increasingly materialistic world, which is so glaringly obvious at Christmas. Whether or not you have religious beliefs, it can feel like the original intent has been lost.

The over excessive commercialisation of Christmas can evoke feelings of needing to focus on perfect gifts, presents and social activities. This can then lead to problems with money and can create issues around debt. This can also feel like a very excluding time for many.

For many, Christmas will be a trigger to engage in excessive self-reflection and rumination about inadequacies as compared to others, who outwardly appear to have more. In addition, many can feel alone and excluded, when this is supposed to be a time for family, get togethers and festive cheer. A sense of belonging can often be lost at Christmas time.

What can be done differently?

Here are some suggestions for what you can do at this time of year to help with the above. Lets ensure this does not happen to you, or someone you know –

• Check in on someone you care about

• Take the pressure off yourself – its only one day

• You don’t need material things to be happy

• Stop comparing yourself to others

• Adverts and television aren’t real life – its a clever marketing campaign

• Be in gratitude and be happy for the little thing that you have in your life right now

• Don’t sweat the small stuff

• Lower your expectations as to what a ‘perfect’ Christmas should look like

• Take some time out for you wherever you can

• Remember – its only one day of the year! – There are plenty of others – 364 to be exact

If anything in this article has evoked something for you, or someone you know, there is lots of support out there. Talk to either someone you know or a professional. I am also happy to chat in confidence about any issues that might be presently being raised for you right now.

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My dog has been really unwell recently. So far, my vet bill has come in at £1,500. Luckily the majority of it has been covered by the insurance. Aside from that however, I haven’t thought twice about handing over my hard cash to the vet, so they can sort out the pooch problems and help get my dog well again. And neither would you. We pay what we need to, in order to ensure our pets are healthy and well.

 

When it comes to our own well-being or health however, are we prepared to put in the investment? Do we think nothing of the costs, and put our health first? I think in many cases, we tend not to. We would rather spend our money on seemingly ‘quick fixes’ in the pursuit of happiness. Things such as a football season ticket, a night out, some new clothes, a holiday. These spends might sure feel good at the time. However, unless we work with the route cause of how we are feeling within ourselves, it is unlikely anything is going to change, in the longer term.

 

Another way of looking at it is this. When you go to the supermarket and buy the weekly shopping, you my buy the essentials such as milk and bread, pick them off the shelf and put them in your trolley.

 

However, you can’t buy these things off the shelf – confidence, success, self esteem or happiness. These come from somewhere else. They come from the inside out. You will find it highly unlikely to improve these areas of your life from external validation either.

 

So, we are happy to pay whatever we need to the vet, to ensure our pets are happy and safe. But how do we look after ourselves?

 

Indecently, those who invest in personal development in whatever shape or form, are those people who succeed and do well in life. They are constantly improving themselves, while helping to eradicate old limiting beliefs that no longer serve them any more.

When will you think about investing in yourself and living the life you want and deserve, instead of the one you dream about?

 

Janine at Change for Success can work with you on a one-one basis to help you smash through limiting beliefs to enable you to achieve the success that you deserve. Janine will help you completely eradicating stress, anxiety and depression amongst other areas. Why suffer for a moment longer, when you don’t have to.

 

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Are you feeling stuck in a certain area of your life and wondering if hypnotherapy will work? Have you heard certain things about hypnotherapy and wondering whether something like that would be suitable for you? Have you ever wondered how hypnotherapy can help you with something that feels like it’s been keeping you stuck for years?

 

First of all, I want to teach you this. We are in hypnosis for the most part of the day. Driving along the road and wondered how you got somewhere? On a long phone call to a friend. Engrossed in a TV programme or a film, scanning through the internet. That day dreamy type state you find yourself in. This is hypnosis type state. Thats all it is!

So why is hypnosis so effective and how can it help?

It is very hard to make a change at a conscious level. Most of us find it easier or more comfortable to stay stuck in old habits or patterns of thinking. Yes, consciously we don’t want to stay stuck, but our subconscious programming has a different agenda. This will be based on old beliefs that are keeping us from moving forward. These are called ‘limiting beliefs’.

Another thing to remember is that that the mind is separated into two parts, the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The conscious part of our mind only makes up around 5%. This is the part that is responsible for reasoning and logic. Whereas the subconscious mind takes up the rest, a whopping 95%. All our internal programmes, beliefs, emotions. It is essentially our storehouse.

Why do we stay stuck when really all we want to do is change?

We are continually instructing our subconscious mind in a certain way, usually a repeated pattern from the past. This is based on those old beliefs we formed a long time ago.

 

So, say your goal is to be happy. Why aren’t you feeling happy right now? What is going on that’s getting in the way of your happiness?

Why do old patterns tend to continue over and over?

This is usually based on learnt behaviour. Something at a subconscious level keeps us in our safety zone if you will. We don’t want to face the fear of the unknown, whatever that might be, so its easier to stay where we are.

Why is hypnotherapy so effective?

As I mentioned above, it is hard to change with the use of our conscious mind alone. We need to work with the subconscious mind, and get it on side to enable us to work with the changes we want. What we can do then, is work with the stuck limiting beliefs. Hypnotherapy works powerfully directly with the subconscious mind to do just that. In a nutshell, if we created certain beliefs, we can un-create them. Like erasing an old computer programme.

I see huge shifts with clients I work with. In only a few sessions, deep routed anxiety, stress and depression is shifted. I also see amazing results with clients who have issues around confidence, self esteem, and fears of any kind. Happy clients report success in a really short space of time. It really is great to witness time and time again, thats why I love the work that I do.

See what other clients have had to say and feel free to contact me on the form below for more information.

https://www.changeforsuccess.co.uk/testimonials/

 

 

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Yesterday I introduced you to affirmations and how we are affirming things in our life over and over that are keeping us stuck (every thought we have, good or bad is an affirmation).

Our internal reality creates are external reality.

Let me explain further. Our thought process are a complete reflection of the lives that we are creating for ourselves. We are literally manifesting where we are in our lives moment to moment.

Lets look at how we can change this. We can do so by choosing to affirm what we wish or desire.

I want to teach you how to create the life you want by using affirmations.

Affirmations should have the following three P’s – 

• Positive
• Persistent
• Present

So, affirmations need to be in the now, they need to be positive, and persistence is the key. If you have a go at this stuff and give up after a few hours or days and think, ‘jees, this isn’t working, I’m going to give up’, then please persevere! Remember, we have continually been thinking the old, familiar stuff for years.

What we are doing with affirmations is we are reprogramming the subconscious, we are instructing our minds to think in different ways.

It takes a minimum of 30 days to create a new habit. Keep going!

There are a couple of other things I want to share with you before I give you an exercise of how to use affirmations.

Affirmations need to be in the now. Not in the future or in the past. As if they are happening now. They also need to be framed as a positive. Don’t put any negative words in there. The subconscious will only hold onto, or recognise the negative, and thats the thing that will persist.

When you start off, it will very possibly feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Most likely of all, you won’t believe it. This is the good news. You don’t have to believe it at first. Simply keep going.

Here are some examples of affirmations for confidence –

• I am confident
• I am a naturally confident person
• I am confident socially and enjoy meeting new people
• I am confident at all times, and in all areas of my life.

If you are unsure where to start, there is a wealth of information on the web about what affirmations are, and what to say.

Louise Hay is the creator/ godmother of this stuff. Great content can be found via her website –

http://www.louisehay.com/affirmations/

Affirmations exercice

What is it you want in your life? What are you missing? What area of your life do you dramatically want to improve?

Write down a couple of affirmations (these need to be short and to the point, they don’t need to go on and on, a sentence will do)

Repeat your affirmations for five minutes first thing in the morning and for five minutes last thing at night. Put them on post it notes in various places. Your bedside cabinet, a mirror, in your car.

In addition to this, you can repeat your affirmations anywhere during ‘dead’ time as well. For example, while driving, brushing your teeth, walking the dog, doing the washing up, in the shower. You can say your affirmations to yourself , it doesn’t need to be out loud and equally, you don’t want to look a wally while you are doing the weekly shop! They will start to feel more and more familiar as things start to change in your life.

 

Remember, persistence is the key. Keep going and don’t give up.

 

If you continue and stick with it, this exercise is like gold dust, it really is.

 

Enjoy, have fun with it, and please let me know how you get on, I want to hear all!

 

If you would like to know any more about the work that I do, or how I can help you, complete the contact form below.

 

 

 

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Have you heard about how we can manifest what we want into our lives?

So why aren’t things happening as quickly as you’d like? Or what aren’t you living the life you’d like right now, or that you had envisaged?

 

Have you also heard that our thoughts create our reality? So what we think, actually creates our life. How you are living right now is determined by your thoughts and the collection of them up until this point. Sounds crazy huh? There is a mass of research emerging by neuroscientists to suggest that very thing. So it’s not actually so crazy people.

I bet you don’t want to let a single thought slip by again!

 

Let me clarify a couple of things in more detail. For one reason or another, as a society, we tend to focus on the negative. We literally feed off negatively. Turn on the TV, the news is negative. Open a newspaper, the thing is flooded with doom, stories of conflict and difficulties around the world.

You might be thinking one of two things.

First of all, I need to hear this stuff. Second, that in general, I am a positive person. Firstly, for every negative story, there will be thousands of acts of kindness. Most on your doorstep. How is by hearing all the stories of violence, war and destruction actually going to enhance our lives? Secondly, I applaud you for being a positive kind of person. However, I would urge you to ask yourself this – is every aspect of your life fulfilled and happy? If they are, I am super duper happy for you.

However, something tells me there might be a couple of things you may want to change. Firstly you are reading this article (yay) and secondly, there is always often something we are striving towards. Be it tons of money in the bank, the most amazing career unimaginable, peak health, or amazing relationships. So why haven’t you got those things right now? Why aren’t you right where you want to be? What is still missing?

I’ll let you into a little secret or two.

What we actually do, is by thought alone, we focus on what we haven’t got. So we are focussing on the negative. I will give you some examples of these thoughts. “I really want to earn tons of money, but I am struggling financially most of the time”, “I really want this illness to go away, but it feels lousy and rubbish feeling this ill all the time”, “I want to be full of energy, but I feel tired most of the time”, “I want to be so successful and happy but I’m feeling low and at the bottom of the pile”. Do you see what we are actually doing? We are focussing on the negative! We are focussing on the lack! So what we are actually doing is manifesting into our lives what we don’t want by focusing on it.

Our thoughts are actually creating a current reality.

 

Here is another one for you. Your world right now, is a reflection of your thoughts and feelings about your current life. Right now. Your inner and outer world are completely connected. Your outer world (so your experiences and everything linked to that) is a direct reflection of your inner world (your thoughts and feelings). And the outer world is a direct representation of you. You are conditioned by the outer world, whatever surrounds you. Much of this happens on auto-pilot.

 

Here are some practical examples you can use to get yourself both off auto-pilot and to begin to create your own reality – whatever you would like in your life that you are currently lacking, or whatever goal you wish to achieve:-

 

Let go of the negative. Be more mindful of your thoughts. Don’t let negative ones pass you by. Notice what thoughts comes up, notice the patterns in your thought process. Spend time on this. Be conscious about what you say to yourself. Every time you hear a negative, stop it as quickly as you can. Stop it in its tracks and replace it with a positive or the exact opposite thought. This takes time and practice, persevere with it, I am teaching you to re-programme the mind. Its had years of current programming!

 

Use affirmations. Have some standard affirmations that you say to yourself on a regular basis. Again, persistent and perseverance is the key! Start the small sentence with “I am” repeat, repeat and repeat. Have them around the home, by your bedside, on mirrors and in the car. Anywhere you can see them easily.

 

Visualise. This can be a straight forward and easy process. Find somewhere quiet. Close your eyes and imagine relaxing yourself from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. Have a firm visual idea about what you really want to achieve. Imagine you are there, see how it feels, notice how you feel and really crank those sights and sounds up, really be there! The subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between reality and imagination, so make it as vivid and real as you can! Every time we instruct the subconscious mind – it will give it back to us in droves. Again, it is all about persistence and showing up, thats they key in all of this.

 

Please do let me know how you get on, I look forward to hearing what you have begun manifesting into your life. If you need any more help at all or would like to ask any questions, I am happy to talk further. I can also help you achieve whatever you want into your life, by way of a super-boosted process within private one-one sessions. Much quicker that you might think. Happy manifesting!

 

Janine can be contacted via the form below. 

Janine works with private clients on a one-one basis and also with corporate clients and organisations helping them to change their mindset so they can live a life of success, wealth, health and abundance.

 

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