Arbutus Coaching’s Blog

Welcome to Because Life Isn’t a Dress Rehearsal, a blog written by life and business coach Kathy Santini, owner of Arbutus Coaching. This blog contains coaching tips and advice to help you become the most self actualized, effective person you can be, both personally and professionally. If you’re serious about “growing your possibilities,” and transforming your life, then you’re in the right place. My goal in writing this blog is to help you create a life that is easier, bigger, richer and more rewarding than the life you’re living now. So let’s get started shall we, because life isn’t a dress rehearsal and time’s a wastin’.

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Success leaves clues - the most important thing you should know if you want to be successful.

By arbutuscoaching | July 27, 2009

In my work as a coach, my coach training, from my interests in brain research and the field of positive psychology and by following prominent leaders and trends in the coaching and human potential fields, I’ve realized that success leaves clues. Book upon book has been written about the subject; it’s fascinating for those who write about it and for those who want to learn more about it. Of particular interest to me is the psychology behind success, because I believe we can all learn the mechanics of success - how to prospect etc. But in my experience as a coach it’s failing to master the psychology of success which creates the blocks for most people.

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought recently, as I’m preparing to present some workshops for realtors on this very subject. So in a very abridged version of those workshops, I offer the following, which I believe to be the most important thing you need to know to increase your chances of success:

• To to be successful, you have to manage your thoughts.  We reportedly think over 60,000 thoughts a day and most of those are repetitious. Unless we’re very, very aware of the power of our thoughts, they are similar if not identical to the ones we were fed by our parents, teachers and the other influential people in our lives as we were growing up. Most of us incorporated their beliefs about ourselves, whether they were true or not.
•  Why is this important? Because at it’s core, success comes down to communication – the most important aspect being how we communicate to ourselves and then with others. Brain scientists tell us that our brain and body respond to every thought we have. The quality of our thoughts is either helping us or hindering us. Positive, happy, hopeful thoughts release chemicals that help you feel good, while negative, worried, or angry thoughts release a completely different set of chemicals that make you feel bad and this is important, erode brain function.
• I was listening to Quirk’s and Quarks the other day; it’s a science show on CBC. The show’s guest explained that when we’re thinking positively, we actually see more visually and that helps us see solutions that might be right under our noses.   So next time you are doing what I call “stinkin thinkin” and can’t find a solution to a problem, do something fun, get into a positive space. It will literally expand your vision and increase the chances that you come back to your problem with a solution.
• Successful people know that thoughts create emtoions, which in turn result in actions and behaviours. We aren’t taught to question or correct the negative words or images that run rampant through our heads. And it’s important that we do so, because these thoughts are at the core of our anxiety, relationship and work problems. Dr. Mona Lisa Schulz, a neuropsychiatrist and brain scientist says that if we continue to replace our initial negative thoughts with more positive ones, over time the more positive thoughts will become more prevalent and become our fallback position, rather than the negative ones. In scientific terms, the positive thoughts create new neuropathways and it they are used more frequently than the negative neuropathways, the positive pathways are going to expand. It’s like driving through snow, drivers are more likely to follow the track already established than to drive through fresh, untouched snow. So manage, question and replace your negative thoughts with more positive ones and like many of my clients, over time you’ll become more positive and optimistic.
• The next time you find an ANT in your brain, not your pants - ANT stands for Another Negative Thought - question it. Find out where it came from, whether it’s real or not. And if it’s not, replace it with a more positive one, one that fills you with positive chemicals, rather than negative chemicals.

There’s a reason for that old adage, change your thoughts, change your life. 

Topics: Success |

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