Attitude changes everything

Attitude changes everything – it can change your life

Attitude changes everything. Change your attitude and you can change your life. You cannot always control what happens to you in life but you can always control how you respond to the challenges or difficult situations you encounter. The attitude you approach anything with is entirely your choice. The way you choose to respond mirrors your attitude and so by changing your attitude you can change your perspective and change your life. Your attitude reflects the way you see the world and how you live in it. It affects every aspect of your life, your happiness, relationships, health, wellbeing and success. Developing a positive attitude that you apply with action can change the way you live your life regardless of the challenges or adversity you face. In this post I want to share with you some of the ways attitude can change the way you live your life.

 

“It’s your reaction to adversity, not adversity itself that determines how your life’s story will develop.”

Dieter F. Uchtdorf

 

The attitude you choose will determine the outcome

Select the most useful attitude that will help you with the challenges you face. The attitude you choose will determine how successful you will manage the challenge or situation. Consider how that attitude will determine what you say, your behaviour and action and what will be the outcome.

Always take action with a purpose

Before you take any action, decide how it will serve your greater goals. Act with thought and consideration when choosing an attitude that will help you take the actions that will manage the challenges you face.

Move out of your comfort zone

If you stay stuck in your comfort zone, it may seem safe and familiar but if you don’t challenge yourself nothing will ever change. If you don’t stretch yourself every day, you will never find out what you are truly capable of. Have a go, take a risk and transition from your comfort zone into your growth zone where you will gain purpose, live your dreams, set goals and overcome the obstacles that have been holding you back.

Take action without expecting success

Change happens and confidence grows from taking action. It’s where you learn most about yourself and build resilience. Of course you have to make decisions and plan your actions to achieve the results you want, but it’s a big mistake to expect those results and then be upset or downhearted when you don’t get them. Take the best action you can but don’t fixate about the result.

Use setbacks or disappointments to learn from and to build resilience

Rather than feeling bad if you fail, reflect on your actions and see what you can do to better or learn what to do next. Growth comes from failing and learning, again and again. Seek out those who share your positive attitude. It’s a known fact that your brain automatically copies the behaviours of the people around you. Therefore, it makes sense to surround yourself with people who have a positive and proactive attitude and move away those who are unduly negative or drain your energy.

Practice gratitude more frequently

Achieving an “attitude of gratitude” entails more than simply recognising what’s wonderful in your own life. Take action by thanking other people for their gifts or kindness to you, even if that gift is something as simple as a smile or an acknowledgement. Don’t take yourself too seriously. If you want to be happier nurture the ability to laugh at yourself. It will help to balance your drive and purpose with a dash of gentle humour and fun.

If you are facing a challenge or difficulty today what attitude will you choose to help yourself?

What action will you take as a result?

If this post has been helpful please share it with other women who may benefit from reading it.

Connect with me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-darbyshire-evans

and go to www.finerthinking.com and you can sign up on the homepage for a COMPLEMENTARY BREAKTHROUGH SESSION to discover how you can learn to change your attitude and change your life so you can thrive not just survive and be fulfilled and enjoy the industry you love.

5 Ways To Replace Self-Doubt With Confidence

5 Ways To Replace Self-Doubt With Confidence

“Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.” – Cicero

It’s common for us all to experience self-doubt at times, especially when we are feeling stressed or overwhelmed. It can hold us back and prevent us from expressing whom we really are and what we want to do because we fear of failure or rejection. Comparing ourselves to others can exacerbate self-doubt. Finding our true voice and purpose isn’t always easy. It means having to confront our own vulnerability, but this is where we can start to build our inner strength and resilience.

I spent too much time my first job, in the fashion industry, in a persistent state of fear and self-doubt. Having only just graduated from university, I was given the responsibility for totally re-branding and designing all the collections. The responsibility was enormous and the pressure intense. I started to doubt my ability to produce what was required. I often worked sixty or seventy hours a week trying to prove I could live up to the company’s expectations and climb what I believed to be the ladder of success. I never thought of the consequences on my health and wellbeing until I was overwhelmed with stress and physical and mental fatigue.

What I learnt from my experience was that I needed to change the way I responded to my self-limiting thoughts. I took a step back and allowed myself to be vulnerable, which was not an easy thing for me to do. The first thing I did was to ask for help. I then started to explore and learn how I could find ways of overcoming my self-doubt. The biggest step for me was to be realistic in acknowledging my abilities and capabilities. I was scared of admitting I couldn’t handle the huge workload. Instead I had pushed myself to do the work of 2 or 3 people and this was unsustainable.

Self-doubt and entrepreneurs

Many clients I have worked with have experienced self-doubt and the resulting negative impact it has had on them. I work with female entrepreneurs and they often feel they have to be good at so many different things to get their business started or to grow their business. They often doubt their abilities to handle all the responsibility and this can lead to them feeling stressed and overwhelmed. If left unchecked this can result in them feeling paralysed when having to make decisions.

But the good news is that Self-doubt is not always negative.

The nervous energy you feel from the stress and anxiety caused by self-doubt can work for you. If you can harness that energy in a positive way it can help you to motivate yourself and to take action. It will also help you to be more resilient.

Here are 5 ways that can help you to replace self-doubt with confidence 

1. Is your self-doubt realistic or unrealistic?

Realistic self-doubt is when you can acknowledge that you have set out to do something that is more than you feel you can achieve at the moment. That’s okay as it makes sense. By owning it you can then act on this realistic knowledge and make a decision about what action to take in order to make it more achievable. For example, perhaps you could take a course or ask an expert in that field for their help.

Unrealistic self-doubt is when you know you have got the resources and skills to achieve what you are trying to do. Change the way you respond by thinking about something you may have done similar before. It may be challenging, but you know it’s achievable with effort and commitment. In this case your initial feelings of self-doubt are likely to be untrue and there is no real reason to doubt your capability.

2. Trust yourself

If you have a decision to make you may ruminate on it too long and that just feeds your self-doubt. Self-doubt can lead to you look for reassurance from others. The best way is to trust yourself and go with your first reaction. How many times have you chosen to follow someone else’s suggestion and then realised that you should have listened to your gut instinct and gone with that. Make a decision and trust yourself that you know what’s the best course of action for you. This is a great way to build your confidence.

3. Clarify your values and what matters to you

When you decide what really matters to you and you find your purpose and meaning in life, your self-doubt will diminish. This will help you to connect to yourself and to others, and will help you manage the challenges and decisions you have to make. Ask yourself is your purpose aligned to your values and strengths?

4. Treat yourself with self-compassion

I remind myself daily to practice self-compassion. If you constantly judge yourself or are seeking to be perfect at everything you do self-doubt or your inner critic will creep in as a form of protection. Imagine how you would respond to a close friend who is struggling with the feelings of self-doubt and respond to yourself with the same words you would say to your friend. Stress experienced from self-doubt can be exhausting so take a break, spend some time with friends or just go for a walk or a run. Self-care is the number one priority and builds your confidence physically and mentally.

5. Don’t compare your accomplishments to others

Comparing yourself with others serves no purpose. Everyone is an individual and on their own journey. What matters is that you are following the path that serves you well. Are you doing what really matters to you, what works for you and is personally fulfilling? Gain confidence through doing what you love and enjoy. This is what makes you feel good about yourself and it doesn’t matter if it is different to what someone else is doing.

Let’s talk

If any of this has resonated with you and you would like to find out more about how to replace self-doubt with confidence please contact kate@finerthinking.com or call 07736 649584. Let’s talk.

Embrace stress and become more resilient

 

Why do some people seem to thrive under stress? Research has shown that this is because they think and respond differently to stress. The difference is that they embrace stress and become more resilient. They have a different mindset because they accept stress as a normal part of life. Resilient people have a growth mindset and believe that to learn and grow they will have to endure difficult experiences to find their strengths to follow their goals.

Embracing stress can change the way you think about yourself and what you can achieve. It can help you to discover your strengths, courage and compassion.

Learning to see the good in stress and see it as a friend rather than an enemy can enable you to meet the challenges in your life and thrive. You can change how you perceive and respond to stress and use it to improve your life both personally and professionally. Recent science has indicated that we are capable of transforming stress into something good. Stress can enable us to learn, grow, connect and engage in all aspects of our life.

The psychologist, Salvatore Maddi, named this attitude and the associate coping strategies as ‘hardiness.’ Hardiness is the courage to grow from stress and enables you to thrive before, during and after the stressful event.

 How to change your attitude to stress

To help you think about stress in a different way take a little time to answer these three questions.

 

  • Identify situations when you have been challenged and felt stronger as a result?

 

  • When has anxiety helped you to rise to a challenge?

 

  • How can you embrace stress and become more resilient?

 

So rather than stress being something you think is damaging to your health and wellbeing you can rethink it. You can become more resilient by learning to embrace stress and use it to pursue what matters to you. Developing a growth mindset will help you become stronger, smarter, healthier, happier and more successful.

Act now! Learn how to embrace stress and make stress work for you. If this post has resonated with you and you would like to find out more please contact kate@finerthinking.com or call 07736 649584