Happy Holidays!
It's that time of the year when we look back and reflect on the time behind us with gratitude. So we want to let you know how much we appreciate that you’ve joined us on the Be Your Own Best Coach journey.
Part of that reflection includes sharing links to the articles we’ve published that our readers found most valuable based. Whether entertaining, inspiring, instructional, or something else, each article found a special place in people’s minds and hearts.
Enjoy!
The Ultimate Guide to Getting Things Done Without Procrastinating
When you’re struggling with procrastination, beating yourself up, sweating bullets in fear that you’ll not be able to pull off what you need to do, feeling miserable and maybe even paralyzed, it’s easy to fail to recognize alternative perspectives. Learn how to stop procrastinating in this ultimate guide to getting things done without procrastination.
8 Magic Words to Change Negative into Positive Self-Talk
Whether your goals are to boost your career, improve your wellbeing, enjoy better relationships, create new habits or crush bad ones, or even deepen your spiritual life, getting a handle on your self-talk is crucial.
Eight specific words can change the course of your inner dialogue, quiet your harsh inner critic, and boost your empathy and self-compassion–important factors that contribute to your ongoing wellbeing.
Transform Your Life With the Circle Technique
The Circle Technique is a super simple but powerful technique that has been used around the world to help people make big shifts in thinking dominated by lack of confidence, hope, or sense of personal control.
The Circle Technique give you a strong start on the path to positive change by helping you:
Recognize the key building blocks of successful change
Work with the two critical elements that come before goal setting
Tackling Challenge Stressors that Lead to Procrastination
One strategy doesn’t work to crush procrastination, no matter how good it is. What you need is a multifaceted approach that accounts for all the factors that contribute to your success . . . or failure.
That’s why we created a proven, science-based behavior design model to make procrastination a thing of the past for you.
In this post, learn the Be Your Own Best Coach Behavior Design Model and the power it offers to help you tackle procrastination in new and more effective ways.
What TV’s Undercover Boss Can Teach Us About Procrastination
Procrastination is our response to stressors that push us out of our comfort zone. It’s not a character deficit or moral failing.
Procrastination is an avoidance strategy that makes perfect sense at the moment because it protects us from discomfort.
A stress-is-enhancing mindset is the solution. It's the belief that stress can challenge you in a way that brings out the best in you.
A stress-is-enhancing mindset is nowhere more apparent than in stories found in Undercover Boss, a reality TV series in which a member in upper-management at a major business goes undercover as an entry-level employee to experience the company from a worker’s perspective.
Six Factors That Make Self-Coaching Essential
As we emerge from the cataclysm of the Covid-19 pandemic, everyone is searching for ways to get back on track, feel whole again, and do better than simply survive. There’s no doubt that all kinds of external resources, including professionals, are important–if not crucial–to our success.
Ultimately, you need to go beyond what’s outside of yourself and cultivate your own internal resources . . . to become your own best coach.
A Priest, a Minister, and a Rabbit Walk into a Bar
The “joke” is based on the distinctly different perspectives, needs, and interests each of the characters in the joke has. It also reveals the absurdity of one-size-fits-all thinking that so often dominates conversation about behavior change.
The truth is, human behavior is influenced by a highly complex set of changing conditions and factors. So any movement toward change has to take those conditions and factors into account.
Ultimately, it starts with effective self-leadership: being responsible, accountable, and disciplined; and managing your inner world of emotions and your emotional reactions.
How to Set Clear Boundaries to Get What you Need from Others
If you want to feel safe, respected, and cared about, knowing how to set healthy boundaries are essential. In this Be Your Own Best Coach workshop recording, you will learn practical strategies that will help you reduce the anxiety, agony, and conflict that are part of all relationships. Listen in to gain the skills to:
Own your own story
Share your story in a way that clearly communicates your boundaries
Invite people to join you on your journey in a way that works for you . . . and respects their choice
How to Escape the Negativity Bias Trap
Evolution has hard-wired our brains to be on the lookout for danger. We notice and remember negative events and experiences far more readily and permanently than positive events and experiences. That’s because negative stuff imprints more quickly in our memories, so negative memories stick around a lot longer than positive ones. As one psychologist says, our brains are like teflon for good stuff and velcro for bad stuff.
This leads to what’s called the “negative bias.” We remember one goof we made and overlook all the good things we’ve done. We seem consumed with resentment when someone treats us less kindly and forget all the caring things they’ve done for us.
The negativity bias is a huge factor that keeps people stuck in conflict within themselves and with others, so your ability to manage it iis a key point of leverage in your career or personal success.
Why You Need a Behavior Design Model
No matter how big you grow your muscle or fuel motivation, it’s a finite resource that can get depleted and needs to be nourished and replenished. You can’t depend on it as the single key factor over the long haul.
The good news is that with even just a little bit of motivation, you can start moving toward action.
That’s because instead of simply waiting for inspiration to strike or motivation to blossom, you can act . . . and you can do it in a way that is right for you without all the agonizing and teeth gnashing.
You do it by designing behaviors based on a model that makes positive behavior doable.
That’s where our Behavior Design Model comes into play.
The Be Your Own Best Coach Behavior Design Model illustrates the four key domains of your life that you must account for if you want to create successful, sustainable change: You, People, Environment, Things.