I'm just an ordinary person who had an ambitious goal, and utilised some extraordinary tools to bring it to life beyond my highest hopes and dreams.

During the summer of 2014/15 I discovered Athletics and I wrote about my roller-coaster journey from a taste of success in the 100m and 200m, to potentially never running again. Certainly, if I’d listened to the first and second piece of advice from the experts, I would never have run again. But this dream was a burning desire, and with significant support and encouragement from my wonderful family and friends, I decided to have a red-hot crack at building my body back to allow me to compete in the World Masters Athletics in November 2016.

If you have a dream that sits deep in your heart, no matter what that dream is, you can achieve it if you single-mindedly set your mind to it and map out your journey.

During my 9 months training for the Worlds, I had to tap into every Positive Psychology tool in my armoury. It pays to practice this stuff in the good times and moderately challenging times, so when you’re being really mentally challenged, you have something to guide you forward.

Here’s the steps I took, and the tools I used to reach the Worlds – which can be equally applied to any goal:

Get the right people around you
Firstly I asked for the support of my husband and teenage children to help out around home to allow me the time I needed to commit to my training regime. They were nothing short of amazing. I also engaged an elite performance coach to ensure my strength training was as good as it could be, I found an incredible sprint coach, and I already had the best physio and chiro who were happy to work collaboratively with my two coaches. This team of people were the foundations from which I grew over the 9 months, without them, I doubt I could have made it.
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What people do you need to engage to assist your goal achievement?

Write your goals and commitments
I wrote out my goal, and I made sure it contained the emotive reasons for why I wanted to achieve this. Why? Because when times get challenging, re-reading the goal in isolation isn’t enough, you need to remember the heart reason why you want it. Here’s my goal that I wrote in February 2016:

It is 1st November 2016 and I feel so proud and amazing. I ran a personal best time in the 100m and 200m and now I have made the final 9 to contest for a medal for my country and I feel excited.

For me, it was the chance to run for my country and do it proud that kept me working hard, so that part needed to be in my written goals. When we were training in the depths of winter, it was freezing cold and bucketing with rain, the track was soaking wet, my feet were numb with cold – it was those times I needed to be very clear that missing training was not an option if I am representing my country.

I also wrote down the number of ice-baths I had to have before I raced and I put a countdown on the wall in the bathroom that I would cross off, one by one. The ice baths were nasty! But they worked, so after returning home from training in the freezing cold and rain, I would get myself into an ice bath for 10 minutes. The first time I cried, with my wonderful husband holding my hand to support me. I got stronger at getting in, I never liked them, but I certainly respected them for how much they assisted the recovery for my worked legs. The countdown helped to remind me that they aren’t forever.

Have you written your goal? Does it include your emotive reasons?

Use visualisations
Each night as I went to sleep I would visualise myself racing really well. For visualisations to be effective, you must fully immerse yourself and all your senses into it. I would picture the track, imagine the sounds around, the spectators noise and the competitors. I would see myself feeling calm, determined and strong. I imagined kneeling down at the blocks, placing in one foot against the block, then the other, getting my hands up to the line and waiting in the crouch position for the race caller to start us. “On your marks” I could hear him say…..”Set”…..my bottom comes up……”bang” goes that gun and I would imagine myself powering out of those blocks. Visualistions are equally as helpful to bring to life whatever it is you’re pursuing – it’s not just for sports.

What will you visualise yourself doing and being?

Eat and sleep well
I made sure my body was fuelled with only the most helpful foods I could nourish it with. Not a single drop of alcohol for 6 months, no refined sugars – only fresh fruit, loads of vegetables and meat…..with one date per day as my treat. When you give your body the right fuel, it can give you the best in return. I felt amazing. I also needed plenty of sleep for my body to have time to repair, refresh and rejuvenate. Each night I would get 8 – 9 hours of good sleep. Again, it doesn’t matter if your goal is a physical one or not, the benefits of eating well and sleeping well still reflect in your ability to think smarter and have less sickness.

Is your diet boosting your brain or bogging it down?

Nurture your mind
Although I was competing physically, I understood the importance of giving my brain some time-out too. Each day I do a mindfulness meditation which keeps my thinking fresh, and my health in tip top condition. There are so many health benefits of daily mindfulness mediation that it should be a part of every person’s day.

Have you tried mindfulness meditation? It takes just 10 minutes a day. Here’s a good starting App called Smiling Mind.

Be alert for negative self-talk
So I actually made it to the Worlds. It was a heck of journey, one punctuated with tears, frustration and further injuries. There were so many times where I doubted myself along the way. Each time I strained another muscle, I would question if I could even do this. The biggest challenge was yet to come; the day I ran out on the track to compete in my first 100m heat at the Worlds. As I looked around at the other competitors from around the world who looked incredibly fit and muscular, the unhelpful voice in my head went like this, “What the heck was I thinking? I’m not good enough to be competing against the best in the world. Why on earth did I think I could compete on the world stage? These guys are the real-deal, they’ve been running for years, I’m just a pathetic novice.” SERIOUSLY! This is what I started saying to myself just before I had to race. Not very helpful. But I grabbed that very quickly as I recognised that none of those words were helpful or even correct. I quickly reminded myself that I’ve put in the all the work I possibly could. I’d trained 6 times a week, eaten only great foods, done all the strength work at the gym, sprint work on the track, I deserve to be here.

Then I switched my focus to tap into my top character strength which is gratitude. I thought how grateful I am that my body allows me to race. How grateful I am to be running against people from all over the world. How grateful I am for all the support that everyone has given to me. And do you know what? Very quickly those negative thoughts disappeared and the feelings totally shifted to that of excitement. If you’re not alert for that negative voice, it can quickly drag you down a spiral which can be hard to pull out of if you drop too far down. Don’t allow your fears to control you, know your strengths and leverage those to shine.

What are your strengths and talents? Be very clear about those and lean into them in the challenging times.

The result
The 100m races were run first. I got through the first two heats to make the semi-final. Unfortunately, I didn’t run near my best in the semi-final and missed out on making the final 9. I was so disappointed. But I still had the 200m race, this was my last chance. Again, I made it through the first two heats to the semi-final. This was my moment of truth. If I didn’t make the final I wouldn’t have achieved my goals. I started to feel an overwhelming amount of pressure to perform, I had no more chances. The night before the semi-final I hardly slept – I was so anxious about making the final 9 I had trained so long and hard for. I could feel the tension rising and my heart rate was elevated. Then I realised that this level of desperate desire was not healthy nor helpful. So I decided to change my thinking to focus on enjoying every moment of this race. I focused on what a privilege it was to meet all these lovely people from all over the world, and to how much I just love sprinting. I focused on all the joys and suspended any thoughts about the imperative to win. The result was that I ran a huge personal best time in that race to secure a place in the final 9. I was beyond ecstatic. This was my dream come true. That was my gold medal equivalent. I had no chance of medalling in the final race because the top three runners were crazy fast, so I just planned to enjoy the finals race because I’d reached my goal of making a final. I ran another PB in the final to finish 7th in the world. In that moment, every ice bath, every kale leaf, every muscle ache, every moment that I couldn’t be with my family….was all worth it. It’s the most proud and satisfied I’ve ever felt in my life.

But it didn’t end there. I flew home and celebrated by eating chocolate, drinking champagne and hugging lots of people who had helped me. A few days later I get a phone call, it’s the Head of the Australian team, she informs me that I’ve been selected to run in the 4 X 100m relay! No way!!! Back I fly to squeeze in some intense training with my team, getting the baton change just right. This was all a new experience for me, running in a relay. Fair to say that we go into this race as underdogs. We had 4 solid runners but not one superstar. But nobody counted on this wonderful bunch of women deeply believing that we can do it by nailing our baton changes and all running PBs….and that’s exactly what we did to come home with a Gold Medal for Australia! PROUDEST. MOMENT. EVER!

What a journey, what a roller-coaster of emotions, what a battle to keep believing. But I have no doubt that it was being able to tap into my armoury of Positive Psychology tools that got me a final in the 200m and a gold medal in the relay. Too cool.

Summary of the tools for making your dreams come true:

• Get the right team of people around you
• Write your goals
• Use visualisations
• Eat and sleep well
• Nurture your mind
• Be alert for negative self-talk

​I’m just an ordinary person who got great clarity of my goal, my why and my how, and then did it. You can too with whatever your goal is if you put those steps in place. Good luck.

​Within you lies a significant power to influence your own happiness and wellbeing; it’s often just a matter of knowing how. Every day I speak with clients who are suffering - suffering from depression, anxiety, self-doubts, self-hatred, lost hope and many other debilitating feelings. Yet we all have strengths, gifts and a power that lies within us to move out of this suffering and into a more energy-filled, empowered and positive life. How? By utilising tools from the science of Positive Psychology, and reshaping your brain.

First it helps to better understand the brain function that we were born with:

• We are hard-wired for negativity. It served as a helpful evolutionary tool to be alert for what’s wrong, but it’s not so helpful today.
• Long term daily stress (think busy traffic, technology that never rests, fighting with loved ones, peer pressure etc) activates the ‘fight and flight’ response which diminishes our creativity, lateral thinking and even makes our thoughts ‘foggy’ at times.
• As we feel worse and more stressed, it sharpens our focus even further on the negatives, thereby creating a continuous downward spiral of negative emotions.
• Our brain is like Velcro for bad experiences (they stick) but Teflon for good ones (they slide off)—making us more stressed, worried, tired and down than we truly deserve to be.

The exciting and empowering news is that we all have the ability to shift our brains natural predisposition and wiring towards noticing what’s wrong! This is because:

• Utilising the brains neuroplasticity, it can be reshaped and rewired, meaning you’re not just stuck with your current, negative way of thinking.
• Your brain can be trained to adopt new thought patterns to overcome negative thoughts.
• It’s not difficult to make real differences through utilising some simple (and fun) Positive Psychology tools.

How do you do that? Here’s some simple practices, that can hardwire your brain for more happiness, love and wisdom into your life.

Being Mindfully Present
Begin by taking notice of your self-talk. How are you interpreting situations? What beliefs are you holding onto that aren’t helping you to live happily?
As Shakespeare wrote, “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” Once we begin to gently notice our thoughts, we can start to see a pattern of thinking that we are following. We then have a choice for whether we wish to maintain that thinking, or replace it with something more empowering and helpful. This requires us being mindfully present to notice the thought and make a choice for what we do with that thought. For example, if a friend hasn’t returned your text message, you could think that they must be cross with you for some reason. If you were practicing being mindfully present with your thoughts/assumptions, you could instead choose a more empowering way to think about your friend not returning your text……maybe they simply forgot because they read it when they were too busy to reply. You see, the meaning you choose then governs your perception and your feelings; which in turn influences your choices, your behaviours, everything! Whenever you elect a new meaning, this changes everything.
Byron Katie came up with some neat questions you can ask yourself to test if your thinking is actually a fact or an unhelpful assumption. You can ask yourself:

• Is it true? (this thought)
• Can I absolutely know that it's true? (is this thought 100% accurate?)
• How do I react, what happens, when I believe that thought? How does this thought make me feel?
• Who would I be without the thought? What would things be like if I didn’t hold this belief?

Rewiring our Brain for Noticing the Good
Using gratitude to start building new thought patterns that are alert for the good things in your life. This helps to counter the brains natural wiring to hunt for the bad things. You do this by writing three things that you're grateful for in your day. Be as specific as you can but if you're really struggling to find anything on a tough day then you go high level, such as a roof over your head. Also reflect on what was your contribution to that good thing happening.

Rewire your Brain for Love, Peace and Happiness
You can use the H.E.A.L. process which was created by Dr Rick Hanson, a psychologist and neuroscientist. He suggests, as you go off to sleep at night, you prime your brain to rewire a deep inner sense of love, peace and happiness. You do this by:

1. Have it – activate a loving positive experience (such as feeling the love that you feel from the most loving person/people in your life).
2. Enrich it – then increase the intensity of that feeling by really focussing on it and letting that feeling sit there.
3. Absorb it – sense the feeling sinking into you. This primes the memory systems to be more efficient at encoding the experience into new neural structures.
4. Link it – you may choose to link this feeling of love towards healing a past hurt or damaged relationship. But a word of caution, don’t do this until you’ve built up the experience of the H.E.A. part first.

If you want to watch a great You Tube clip with Dr Rick Hanson explaining the science behind this technique, have a look here.

All these techniques are not onerous or time consuming, they are free to access and often enjoyable. And they can lead to profound changes in happiness, wellbeing and life satisfaction…..it’s all in your hands! Give it a go and see how you feel. 

What do these three people have in common?

Paul* is a big, strong, macho-type 23-year-old. He has a loving family, supportive friends, the choice to eat great food and wear nice clothes. He normally loves socialising, and is often holding the crowd with his quick wit and humorous tales. He has everything to be happy about in life, yet he’s not. In fact he’s so deeply unhappy he’s experiencing dark thoughts and a desperate urge to withdraw and not face the world.

And then there’s Phil*; an introverted and shy 21-year-old. He has a couple of rock-solid, long term friends that he mostly catches up with at his house or theirs. He doesn’t much like going out, it can all feel very overwhelming. His family cares about him deeply and have noticed in recent months Phil is spending more and more time in his darkened room, participating in online gaming all hours of the night. He has slipped into bad eating habits, no exercise and has become very withdrawn from everyone. He now feels hopeless and lost, and gaming has become the only way to escape his current misery.

Lastly there’s 19-year-old Jane*; she wasn’t as lucky as Paul and Phil to have been born into a loving family, instead she suffered abuse and abandonment. Her childhood was filled with uncertainty and broken promises. This lead her to find dysfunctional adult love where she ended up pregnant at 17, and then a single Mum. With little support around her, she found her thoughts dropping to a point where, for one small moment, she convinced herself that everyone would be better off without her…..including her two year old daughter.

These are real stories about real people, my clients, who are all very different, yet at their core, they are the same. So what do they have in common? They all told me, “I wish I had spoken up earlier and told someone that I wasn’t OK”!

I have had many, many people, young and old, say those words to me. Somehow, once we find the actual courage to admit we’re struggling, that is often the most significant turning point and the upward pathway out begins.

The other thing these clients always say is, “I wish I had spoken up sooner and ended my suffering much earlier”.  So this is why I’m sharing this blog. To let those of you who are currently suffering – and I know there’s way too many of you out there –despite how flat, dark, down, lost, hopeless, angry or sad you feel, say to someone who cares about you, “I’m not okay”.  Those three words could save your life.

Those who muster up the courage and energy to come and see me, and share how they’re really feeling (which can be very hard to say out loud because it makes it real), invariably express how relieved they immediately feel to have got it out of their head. They are shocked at the sudden weight that is lifted and a glimmer of hope can begin to ignite again.

The path away from suffering is easier when you share it – don’t do it alone – you really don’t have to. Paul, Phil and Jane are all enjoying a new liberating feeling of self-worth, and freedom from those constant negative thoughts and voices. They achieved this simply by admitting they were not okay, and using some wonderful Positive Psychology interventions that I shared with them. You can too…..all you need to do is tell someone.

For free professional help, you can contact Life Line, Beyond Blue or the Black Dog Institute. Speak up and start your journey today. Rekindle your hope through a conversation. You may be surprised that people really care…..I know that I do.

*not their real names

​It’s exam time and suddenly so many aspects of your life seem nearly impossible to deal with, right? This is because there are changes happening in your brain when you feel stressed which can cause you to feel unable to cope. Be assured there is a lot of good about having some stress, but long term stress is bad for you and it's important to get back in balance again.

Firstly, it helps to understand what is happening within you when you feel stressed. Stress is a biological and psychological response experienced on encountering a threat that we feel we do not we have the resources to deal with. This ‘threat’ may be things like exams, over-load of work, your children fighting, relationship breakup or something more immediate such as a dog trying to bite you. The brain and body decide from assessing the current situation, as well as from past experience, that you need extra ‘energy’ to be able to cope better. Note that ‘cope better’ originally meant ‘stay alive’ from an evolutionary perspective. So your brain gives signals to better prepare your body to run away or fight whatever was threatening you; let’s say a tiger was going to eat you. Today, you experience the same response to a threat but the threat is no longer a tiger but rather an exam. Your brain simply perceives that this exam is scary and holds a lot of power, so it helps you cope just the same way it would if your life was under threat from a tiger – you experience the ‘fight or flight’ response. You get the hormones - adrenaline and cortisol - released into your system. Adrenaline increases your heart rate, breathing and carbohydrate metabolism and prepares muscles for exertion (running away from or fighting the tiger). Cortisol has many functions but in terms of the imminent threat, it reduces inflammation in the body, which helps if you’ve just had to fight or run away from a tiger, chances are you’ll receive some bodily harm. However, when our mind and body responds to exam pressure in the same way as a tiger, we get filled with adrenaline and cortisol which prime us for fast action, not sitting at an exam! The part of the brain responsible for triggering the fight and flight response is called the amygdala which sits is in the limbic system of the brain. When the amygdala is fired up it puts us on heighten alert for all ‘threats’, not just the exam.
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Have you ever noticed how overwhelmed you can begin to feel about all aspects of your life during exam time?

This is because your brain is hunting for everything that is wrong. Those friends that were being a bit unkind, now seem devastating and impossible to deal with. The job that is demanding but you were coping with, now feels overwhelming with even more grumpy customers than ever. The reality is that it’s not the job or the friends who are any different now, it’s the way you’re perceiving them that’s created the anxiety for you. Your brain is now a negativity hunting machine, only reinforcing that you’re unable to cope……and so you can’t cope……and so the spiral downward continues.

So how do your break this unhelpful cycle which all begun because of some old survival trigger that really isn’t serving you well today?

5 ways to switch your brain off ‘fight or flight’ mode and feel in control again
Firstly, we need to let our brain know that there isn’t a tiger trying to eat us, there’s only some exams to complete, that aren’t actually life threatening, so we can ‘turn down’ the amygdala. You do this by:

1. Mindfulness Meditation - Do Mindfulness Meditation for 10 minutes each day. Take a moment to slow down and give your stressed and busy mind some respite. If you feel as if you can’t even spare 10 minutes to do this, then you need to do it the most! Read a previous blog on how to slow down.
2. Hunt for the good stuff - When we’re in fight and flight mode our vision literally narrows to be sharply focused on what is wrong. Again, from an evolutionary perspective this was helpful to only focus on the approaching tiger to increase our chance of survival. It wasn’t going help if I started noticing the pretty flower when a tiger is about to pounce! For this reason, you will accidentally be alert for all the things that are wrong because your brain is on hyper-alert for that. In fact, Dr Barbara Fredrickson has shown that our actual peripheral vision is reduced while we feel stressed, to help us keep sharply looking at what is wrong. To shift that negativity bias, it helps to intentionally hunt for what is good right now as well. What are you grateful for? Food to eat, friends who hug you, clothes to wear, a good joke?? Stop and hunt for the things that are going well in your life…..they are there…..it’s just that your mind has stopped you noticing them. Noticing the good will help to take your brain out of fight and flight mode and back into balance again.
3. Gain perspective - Get a better perspective for how little of your lifetime this period of exams really is. Is it only another month or four months? In the context of your lifetime this is such a small amount of time, and it’s only for a finite period. This will end. Focus on how close the end really is (relative to how long you still have to live) and get excited that you know it will end. This isn’t forever, it’s just for now.
4. Exercise - There it is…..you know it….but there just isn’t time any more, is there? Yes, there actually is. Make exercise a priority and notice the stress diminish immediately. Remember the origins of the ‘fight or flight’ response are to give you adrenaline so your muscles work faster and stronger. If you exercise you literally burn up lots of that excess adrenaline that is sitting negatively in your system. Plus you will produce endorphins which are a good feel chemical. These endorphins interact with the receptors in your brain to trigger a positive feeling in the body, similar to that of morphine! Why wouldn’t you want more of that good stuff?
5. Get more sleep - OK….you know this one MUST be mentioned too…..you need more sleep. But how can you sleep when you feel so stressed and your mind won’t stop? Try these:

• Mindfulness meditation (as per above)
• Avoid artificial light one hour before bedtime (computer screen or smart phone)
• No TV in bedroom
• Avoid coffee in afternoon/evening 
• Avoid large meals before bedtime
• Keep routine for bed time and rising. Go to bed and get up at the same time every day, even on weekends and days off. Being consistent reinforces your body's sleep-wake cycle and helps promote better sleep at night.
• If you don't fall asleep within about 15 minutes, get up and do something relaxing. Go back to bed when you're tired.
• Take a warm bath

There is a famous Native American story that simplifies all of the above into one tale:
One evening, an old Cherokee tells his grandson that inside all people a battle goes on between two wolves. One wolf is negativity: anger, sadness, stress, contempt, disgust, fear, embarrassment, guilt, shame and hate. The other is positivity: joy gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe and above all, love.

The grandson thinks about this for a minute, then asks his grandfather, "Well, which wolf wins?"

The grandfather replies, "The one you feed."

So whether it’s exams causing your stress or anything else, you do have the ability to reduce it down and feel more calmly in control again by using these steps.

And, as always, if you feel you’d benefit from a helping hand to cope, then book here to come and see me, I’d love to help.

A few weeks ago I had an absolute lifetime highlight of trekking through Nepal with my 23-year-old daughter, Kate. We sought out a remote trek in the Himalayas which meant there were a number of days that the only people we saw were our porter, our guide and each other. Just the four of us and massive mountains for 14 days. There were times the trekking was very hard, hour upon hour of uphill with backpacks and high altitude. I love to test my physical limits; and test them I did!

Something very interesting emerged for me over the course of our trek. Our porter, Bishnu (pictured), is a Nepalese man who is 50 years old and as strong as an ox. He carried our main bag, his bag and our fruit for the whole trek. His overall load was close to 60kg!! I consider myself quite fit and strong and I had times where I was wondering how I would take that next step up the mountain, and then I’d look at Bishnu strolling up, smiling and carrying 60kg as well……arrgghh…..amazing. Anyway, it quickly became apparent to Kate and I that Bishnu was a gentle giant. He was so strong (we felt totally protected by him….that absolute sense that if anything threatened us along the way he would keep us safe), and yet so gentle in manner and kind in nature. The fascinating thing was that Bishnu hardly spoke a word of English. He called me “Madam” or “Mum” and said “thank you”, and I think that’s the extent of his English vocabulary. Yet his actions transcended language. Kate and I knew this man was incredibly kind, thoughtful and caring……how did we know this when we never spoke a word to each other? By his actions. And that got me thinking about how much our actions tell who the real person is, not our words. Sure, words can support and even enhance an action – you could cook a meal for a sick neighbour and include a card with some encouraging words on it – but it’s the action that tells the story.

Back to the trek to expand on the whole actions-speak-louder-than-words thing. One day we were on a steep descent when I trod on loose stones, lost my footing, fell onto my butt and then proceeded to tumble down the hill for a bit (very embarrassing!). I was actually completely fine, except my pride, I think the tumble had looked worse than it was. Bishnu rushed over looking really concerned for me. I tried to show him that I was fine just a bit shaken. He motioned to me to take off my backpack. I thought he was suggesting I take a moment to recover, so I took it off and sat for a moment (while Kate tried to pull herself together from laughing at me….what are daughter’s for??!!). Bishnu then picked up my backpack and showed me that he will carry it now. Seriously?? My backpack was 10kg and he was already carrying 60kg. I really was fine and I felt uncomfortable about him taking more weight, especially as we were about to head uphill again. But with great human warmth and connectedness, he looked me in the eye and nodded, as if to say, I’m sorry you fell, please let me help you. Reluctantly I let him, more out of respect for how important this gesture seemed to him, than my real need to be free of my backpack. And there it is. No words shared yet an action that spoke so clearly about who this man is….how powerful.

Since returning to Australia I’ve worked harder on noticing where there is any incongruence between my words and actions. When there is, I try to unpack that a bit further to mindfully reflect on what causes that tension between my words and actions. Nearly always it’s some unhelpful, old negative belief about myself that is still lingering deep within me that sabotages the action. For example, recently I said I would spend the day writing a business proposal for a new workshop I’ve developed, yet I ‘accidently’ got too busy washing the clothes, food shopping, answering my emails, doing a workout…..and then the day was gone and I didn’t ever write my proposal. My words didn’t match my actions that day at all. Why? If I’m honest, my best guess is the fear of rejection of my proposal sat quietly beneath it, creating a raft of self-sabotage behaviours that meant I filled my day with busyness that ‘protected’ me from completing the proposal because if I had completed it, I would need to sell it. But believe me, each of those actions felt absolutely 100 percent necessary. I could justify every behaviour – I had to shop, we were out of food in the house, I had 43 unread emails that needed attending to, there was a pile of washing that needed doing….etc, etc….but none of that would really be the true reason I didn’t write my proposal. My fear altered my behaviour. My actions showed the real me, not my words. Just as Bishnu’s did when he took my backpack. What do your actions say about you? Where would you be in a year’s time if your actions modelled your words? What would things be like if you were free from negative beliefs?
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If you want to explore more deeply what might be holding you back where your actions don’t match your words/hopes/desires, then you might consider booking a session with me……at least you’ll know I understand where you’re coming from….no judgement from me!

1.  Don’t praise your kids
Really? I hear you say. Well, it depends on how you do it but for most of us we do more accidental long term harm than good when we praise our children. Resilient children who grow into emotionally robust adults have learnt how to objectively assess their own successes – they are not reliant upon any external validation, and they see mistakes as wonderful growth opportunities.
So think about it, when your child brings you their drawing and says, “What do think Mummy/Daddy?” and you say, “Well done, you’re such a great artist”, that is your own assessment of the art work, and your personal endorsement of its worth. If this type of external endorsement occurs over and over it becomes harder for your child to learn how to objectively view it for themselves. You may also be rewarding an innate ability that actually took little effort, so this can build an association for the child that anything that requires effort must mean they’re no good because they shouldn't have to try that hard. In the end they may grow into adults who will constantly seek validation from others because they have never learnt how do it intrinsically. And they may develop a fixed mindset to equate mistakes with failure, and effort with meaning they are no good.
 
But don’t despair, this doesn't mean you can’t offer support, it’s how  you word that support that can set up your child for life. You can do three specific things to help:

1. Help them to assess their own worth – “What do you think of your drawing? What do you like the most about it? What have you learnt while doing it?”
2. Praise for effort, not natural ability – “I can see that you spend time to make sure you coloured within the lines”, “I can see the care you took in choosing the mix of colours you used”, “I can see the care and effort that went into this”
3. Help them understand the importance of seeking feedback for mistakes, so they may learn and grow – “I’m glad you came and asked for help, seeking feedback helps us to become better and better”, “I understand that you’re disappointed with how this looks, so what can you ask your art teacher so you can improve for next time, because not getting something right is a wonderful opportunity to learn more?”

 
2.  Don’t always buy them what they ask for
It’s not our kids fault but they have grown up in a world that doesn't wait for anything. Teaching them some self-control, to wait and save for things is a wonderful skill you can give them. Patience is a learnt skill, so they need to have opportunities to experience it to develop it. Yes, they’ll likely whine and tell you that ALL their friends already have one (whatever it is!). But there is plenty of research to show children who learn to delay gratification grow into more resilient adults. Without us helping them, they enter the adult world ill-equipped to save for their first car, or how to say no to that piece of cake. Even learning how to be grateful for a gift they might not like is something they need to learn. The alternative can look quite ugly…..watch the video below if you’re not sure what I mean!​
 
3.  Don’t over-protect them
All we want for our kids is to be happy. I'm sure it’s for that reason we over- protect them from failure. Yet in doing so we prevent them from learning how to master important life skills. One study found children who were granted more freedom became significantly more active and their teachers perceived the children to be more social, more resilient and more creative. And interestingly, injuries did not increase. Without taking some risks as children, they grow into risk-averse adults who can be psychologically fragile, socially awkward and unable to deal with everyday basic challenges that life throws at them. Making everything right for your children can make their teen and adult years scary and stressful. It’s a skill that can only be learnt from experience, please don’t deny them that experience. Let them climb that tree, dig in the dirt, walk bare feet or ride the bike to the park by themselves.
 
4.  Don’t let them eat dinner in front of the TV or in their rooms
Our children are already exposed to more hours in front of a screen than any other generation, so at least enjoy a meal together! There can be so much family richness that incidentally occurs when families eat and chat together over the evening meal. We have always encouraged the talk by going around the table sharing:

• The best thing in our day
• The most challenging thing in our day
• What we are most grateful for in our day

We've found these three questions have very specific purposes – asking the ‘best thing’ encourages us to hunt for the good stuff (to help counter our minds natural negativity bias); the ‘most challenging thing’ opens up a space to make sense of the world when something unkind or unfair has happened; looking for what we’re ‘most grateful’ for reminds us not to take things for granted to appreciate all the good in our lives (which increases wellbeing and reduces the risk of depression).
Sometimes we’ll have ‘bad manners night’ where we don’t use a knife and fork and simply bog into our meal with our hands. It creates loads of laughter and bonding together. Or other nights we’ll slow right down and savour our meal – eating in silence for the first part of the meal to really appreciate all the tastes and textures and to give thanks for all of its goodness. Family time together helps develop important social skills for life.
 
5.  Don’t berate yourself for mistakes or comfort yourself with alcohol
Our children are sponges. How we behave is what they observe to be right. If I say out loud, “I’m such an idiot, I can’t even bake cakes properly”, then my children will inherently believe that if things go wrong for them it must be because they are stupid. Or if I come home from work and say, “I need a glass of wine, it’s been such a hard day”, then by association my children will adopt a belief that alcohol is a cure for stress. Whether we like it or not, our children will model our behaviours – the good and the bad. So be very careful what you are modelling to encourage positive self-talk and healthy behaviours for dealing with stress.

So that's it, my 5 suggestions for happy children. I wish you every success with raising your children and enjoying the journey.

Knowing we have the ability to re-wire our brains, and we don't have to live with limiting thoughts and beliefs that hold us back, is truly motivating in my work with my clients. I have the privilege of watching people, young and old, transform themselves and get to live the life they desire. Best of all, the tools to achieve this significant change are free and accessible to anyone. 

Here's my 5 steps to rewire your brain to live the life you desire:

1.  Manage your thoughts
By changing our thoughts, we can begin to rewire our brains to see the world in new and different ways. This process takes time, effort and intention but know that it is achievable with practice. I think of it like learning to drive a car – in the beginning it takes a lot of concentration and effort but over time it gets easier and easier, and today you drive with virtually no effort. When we repeat new ways of thinking, at first it takes effort but over time it becomes who we are with little effort required.
 
The thoughts and beliefs we have about ourselves and our world play a huge role in how we feel and how we behave. Releasing yourself from negative thoughts is dependent on your ability to change unhelpful beliefs, by getting rid of old ones and replacing them with new and empowering ones – which rewires your brain.

How do you know which beliefs to change? Sometimes it is obvious, like you say to yourself, “I’m useless, I can’t even make a cup of tea” – you can hear that is a negativity. However, sometimes it’s subtler, like keeping yourself really busy in the kitchen at parties because that behaviour protects you from having to interact with people which could tap into a deeply held fear of being disliked. In this case you can’t hear any direct words in your head, but deep down you really know you’re avoiding having to talk with strangers.
 
To help uncover unhelpful beliefs, it may help to ask yourself:

• How does this thought/behaviour make me feel?
• What would things be like if I didn’t hold this belief or behaviour?
• What caused me to believe this in the first place?
• Where did I learn this?
• How does this belief guide my actions and choices in life?
• Is this thought considerate, kind and reasonable towards myself and/or others?

 
Once you’ve been able to establish the negative thought or behaviour, you are ready to begin shifting it and replacing it with a new, more realistic and functional belief.
 
We do this by gently stopping that thought or behaviour as soon as it begins, and then ‘reframing’ it.  
 
Let’s use our two examples above to demonstrate how you do this. If you think to yourself “I’m useless, I can’t even make a cup of tea” – you can reframe that into something like, “No one can be perfect all the time, I chose to look at how much I have accomplished, and I am still progressing”.

Or you notice that you’re keeping yourself busy in the kitchen at the party, so you gently challenge that avoidance behaviour by saying to yourself, “This is an opportunity, instead of a threat. I will use this experience and my kind nature to learn something new, to change my direction, and to try a new approach”.

2.  Mindfulness Meditation
Self-critical minds can be very busy minds, and it can feel exhausting. To help break the cycle, you will benefit greatly from doing daily Mindfulness Meditation. Try to do 10 minutes each day. I use an App called Mindful Creation which I really like, or there’s a good free one called ‘Smiling Mind’ with some very short ones which can be good for starting out. Doing this will help to quieten your mind and eventually enable you to observe your thoughts/feelings, rather than being a slave to them. It also gives your ‘busy’ mind some restful time. Don’t worry too much if you find it hard to stay focussed when you first start, this is natural. Try not to judge how you go, rather just do it as best you can and know that with practice it will get easier.
 
3. Be Grateful
Start using gratitude to build new neural pathways that are alert for the good things in your life, to counter-balance our brain’s negativity bias. You do this by writing three things that you're grateful for in your day (or thankful for, or went well). These don’t need to be big things. I could simply be being grateful for a friendly check-out person at the supermarket. Also reflect on what was your contribution to that good thing happening. Here’s a good article here that explains the science of gratitude if it interests you. 

4. Set goals
Setting goals can be a very positive practice. There has been a lot of research on the benefits of goal setting to help maintain a happier and healthier life. Your dopamine system, which is a chemical that is released every time you experience a reward, is reliant upon goal setting and achievement. So as dopamine is released into the part of your brain responsible for positive rewards, you are essentially motivated to repeat this occurrence. When you set goals and accomplish them, you and your brain are rewarded (Mehta, 2013). Read here about how to write a goal that you can achieve.
​
5. Have more fun
Dr Barbara Fredrickson is best known for her Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions. In this theory she proposes, “that the positive emotions broaden an individual’s momentary mindset, and by doing so help to build enduring personal resources (Fredrickson, 2003, p. 332).” The experience of positive emotion leads to novel thoughts, activities and relationships, which in turn provides more personal resources, such as social support, improved skills and resilience to overcome obstacles.
Here's some things that you might like to try to build your positive emotions:

• Watch a funny movie and laugh
• Listen to an upbeat song and sing along to it
• Engage in an activity or hobby that provides you pleasure
• Have fun and talk with friends
• Read an inspiring book
• Play board games instead of watching television
• Exercise

 
There is no quick fix to a happier, more empowered life. However, thanks to the benefits of neuroscience, we now know it possible to rewire your brain to live the life that you desire. I wish you every success with that. And remember, if you need some help along the way, I am only a call away!

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​The statistics suggest that we'd be lucky if one third of us will achieve our New Year's goals! If you'd like to reach your goals this year, follow my top ten scientifically proven tools:

1. Break your goals down to achievable milestones, such as losing 2kg per month, rather than 12kg in six months.
2. Really believe you can achieve it by focussing on the smaller milestone and also reflecting on your past successes (rather than the failed attempts).
3. Willpower is a finite resource each day, so rather than having to resist temptations, remove them so you don't deplete your willpower and give in.
4. Make your goal an 'approach' goal - one you aspire to achieve, rather than an avoidance goal around what you don't want. For example, rather than I want to lose weight and no longer feel fat, you would focus on what you want to weigh and how great you expect to feel when you reach that weight.
5. Reward yourself along the way when you reach each little milestone - this releases dopamine in the brain which helps you feel good and more likely to stick with your goal.
6. Get very clear on the emotive reason you want to achieve your goal, not just the intellectual reason. It's the emotive reason that will help you stick at it. Ask yourself "why" do I want to achieve this goal, and keep asking yourself "why" until you've really unpacked the emotive reason.
7. Keep visual reminders around you, such as realistic story boards (not ones with examples of ‘perfect people’, but realistic reminders of where you’re headed), put up post-it notes, phone reminders and keep visualising yourself achieving your goal.
8. Use an anchor to something you already do each day to remind you by using ‘when/then’ statements. For example, “When I brush my teeth, then I’ll do 10 squats”.
9. Get a cheer squad around you. Enrol your friends and family to support you, especially when you’re finding it tough, and also to help celebrate your milestones along the way.
10. Most importantly write down your goal, ensure it follows the SMART principle (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and has a Timeframe) and include some positive emotions and your real reason why you want to achieve it. An example of goal written like this might be, “It’s the 1st January 2017 and I feel energised and amazing now that I’ve reached my goal weight of 60kgs. Now I can run around with the children and actively participate in their lives. Gosh I feel fantastic!” – it’s SMART, it contains some positive emotions and it includes the real reason why you want to lose weight. 

Good luck with you goal achievement this year. If you’re wanting some professional support, please contact me and I’d be delighted to be your coach and support your journey with proven Positive Psychology tools.

​As 2015 wound up, I took some time out to be still, reflect and relax at a beach-side holiday house. I’m not even going to pretend that relaxing was easy. I am one of these people who frantically fills each day. If I’m not actually running around doing an errand, working, going to the gym, business planning, netball coaching, answering emails/texts; then my mind is still buzzing with thoughts. I had fallen victim to the productivity trap. I felt that if I wasn’t doing something productive then I must be getting behind and not using my time well. I would fill micro-moments by pulling out my phone, refreshing my inbox, scanning Facebook, reading headlines etc.  I was clearly in the habit of being busy and had to learn how to stop.
Most days I do mindfulness meditation, and I’m confident this has helped me remain healthy and balanced but I can now see that wasn’t enough. So as much for my sake, I am sharing this blog about how to slow down in 2016 and to reap all the rewards. Here’s some ways that science has proven how Mindfulness will help:
Being ‘mindfully’ present
Our mind does have a mind of its own! It constantly creates ideas and thoughts – some helpful, some wrong, some mean and most habitual. So when we live on autopilot we simply accept our assumptions and thoughts as facts. So in my case, I was in the habit of being busy and the absence of that felt wrong, so I ‘accidently’ hunted for things to keep me busy. By staying mindfully present more often, I got the opportunity to notice the habit loop for what it was – an old assumption and habit that may not be factual - and then I was able to gently challenge the habit. Do I really need to check my emails again right now? No. Do I really have to read another professional development article? No (that was the fearful voice because maybe I’m not knowledgeable enough to be worthy of clients, even though I’m constantly studying). Am I really not good enough to pitch for that business? No – I was just afraid of getting a knock-back. Try to be aware of your habitual, unhelpful and untrue inner critic. The inner critic is a mindless self-judgment that undermines wellbeing and affects our interactions with the world. When we take that critical voice at face value, it fuels negative feelings. Even if there is some reality to the thought—maybe I do need to keep learning to keep abreast of the current information - the incessant negativity isn’t helpful. Slowly, thought by thought, I have begun to re-wire my brain to be different. Your thoughts shape your brain, so by changing your thoughts, you change your physical construct of reality! Cool hey?
 
Doing Mindfulness Meditation
All you need to find is 10 minutes each day to do a Mindfulness Meditation practice. Sure, longer is even better but 10 minutes is enough. We can all find 10 minutes if we understand why it’s so important to our health and wellbeing. Mindfulness Meditation reduces the chatter in our brains, lowers stress, improves focus, helps us manage pain better and have better relationships. Who doesn’t want more of those things? If you’ve got a busy mind like mine, I suggest starting with a daily ritual of spending just two minutes watching your breath. Nothing else. Sit still and notice your breath – don’t alter your breath – simply notice it going in and out. Once you’ve got comfortable with that, progress to a guided meditation. I use an App called ‘Mindful Creation’ which I really like, or free one called ‘Smiling Mind’ is also good with some very short ones which can be good for starting out. There is a You Tube clip that might be a good place for you to start because it’s only a 2 minute Mindfulness Meditation. Don’t worry too much if you find it hard to stay focussed when you first start, this is natural. Try not to judge how you go, rather just do it as best you can and know that with practice it will get easier, and every one helps.
 
Savouring
Savouring is when you become very mindfully present in your current moment so you take in all the experiences of the pleasant thing that you’re doing, such as taking a shower or eating your lunch. It helps to get curious about what you’re doing and looking at it as if you’ve never seen or done this thing before. So eating your lunch, taking in all the tastes and textures. Noticing how your tongue moves to swallow and feeling the food going down etc. This has two great benefits:

1. It increases the depth of pleasure that you experience in a situation
2. Increases feelings of wellbeing and happiness

Savouring can be extended to pleasant past experiences too. Take the time to really reflect on a time you were feeling great (maybe on a holiday) and look at any photographs or souvenirs you may have. Fully immerse yourself back to that experience to re-live it. It amps it up even further if you are able to share that experience by re-telling to someone else too.
Read this great article fully explaining how to savour and the benefits.
 
So on my holiday I meditated, I savoured, I challenged my inner voice and I stopped and relaxed. It was surprisingly difficult to begin with, to leave my phone behind when we went for a walk, to allow myself to just sit – with no other reason than to......sit! But I reaped the rewards, and so did my family. It’s a wonderful way to begin 2016 and I plan to make this my new habit. May your 2016 be filled with peace and happiness too.

Last month’s blog was about a client who built their resilience and how that buffered them during a very challenging time being diagnosed with a brain tumour. This blog is to flesh out some of the tools she used in the years preceding her diagnosis to overcome depression and build a deep resilience that has seen her experience further growth though her traumatic surgery and recovery.

Clearly if you’re suffering from serious depression, it is advisable to seek help from your doctor. The following interventions have proven to be very helpful for those with mild to moderate depression, in not only clearing the fog but then going further and building real resilience to buffer against future events.

There are numerous, effective positive psychology interventions that work for depression, here I will share some that I’ve found to be the most broadly useful for my clients.

Hope
Feeling genuine hope when looking into the future is a natural buffer against depression. Here are a few simple, yet powerful techniques to help build your hope:

1. Best Possible Future Self exercise - Firstly, when doing this exercise try not to judge yourself and simply write in a ‘dumping’ manner for about 15 – 20 minutes straight. Don’t worry about grammar or spelling, simply get into the flow and write. So, think about your life in one year from now. Imagine everything had gone as well as it possibly could have. You’ve worked hard, your life dreams have come true. Picture what you’re doing now and what life looks like. Now write about the details. Try to be as specific as possible. I find it’s best to write it one day and then come back to it the next day to tweak up bits after they’ve had a day to percolate.
2. Silver Lining perspective - Reflect on any painful experience in the past or present and look for the good that came from the experience. The ancient Greeks believed that ‘all wisdom comes from suffering’ and I think there’s something in that. So rather than only focussing on the pain (and it’s natural and ok to feel negative emotions) but also try to balance that out with uncovering a benefit from this pain. Try to get into the habit of always looking for a small positive from every negative situation. An example may be if your relationship breaks down you can reflect on what new gift of learning this has given to you, such as helping to identify communication problems so you can deal with them differently next time, or even notice that the choice of partner was wrong and how you can avoid that again. 
3. ‘What if’ technique - Our brains have a natural negativity bias. From an evolutionary perspective this served us well for the survival of our species, however today this often diminishes hope as we accidently focus on what’s wrong. Regularly using a counter statement of ‘what if’, is one way to reduce the power of the negativity bias. For example, we tend to worry about what might go wrong by using statements like, ‘what if I don’t get this job?’ or ‘what if they don’t like me?”. By using the opposite positive outcome, it reduces the negative impact, for example, change the previous questions to, “what if I do get this job?’ and ‘what if they do like me?’. It also helps to just use the positive ‘what if’ statements towards things that you’re doing in your day, such as, ‘what if l have fun at this party?’, ‘what if the weather is great?’, and ‘what if I stopped listening to my negative voice?’. It helps to prime our mind to notice more good which helps us to feel more hopeful.

Gratitude
Being intentionally grateful has numerous benefits, such as better relationships, improved self-esteem, better sleep and improved psychological health, including reducing depression. Here’s some proven techniques for increasing gratitude and reducing depression: 

1. 3 best things - At the end of each day, write down 3 things you’re grateful for (or thankful for) in the day. You can either write it in a journal or type it into an App on your phone/iPad.  I use an App called Gratitude Journal by Carla White which I like because it also sends you a reminder which can be helpful when you’re starting out. Try to be as specific as you can but if you're really struggling to find anything on a tough day then you go high level, such as a roof over your head. And the things you’re grateful for don’t need to be huge things, it could be a flower bud that has opened. Also reflect on what was your contribution to that good thing happening – eg the beautiful flower emerged because you’d watered the plant.
2. Gratitude letter - Dr Martin Seligman is often referred as the father of Positive Psychology and he describes the Gratitude Letter in his book ‘Flourish’. This is what he says: Close your eyes. Call up the face of someone still alive who years ago did something or said something that changed your life for the better. Someone who you never properly thanked; someone you could meet face-to-face next week. Got a face? Your task is to write a letter of gratitude to this individual and deliver it in person. The letter should be concrete and about three hundred words: be specific about what she did for you and how it affected your life. Let her know what you are doing now, and mention how you often remember what she did. Make it sing! Once you have written the testimonial, call the person and tell her you’d like to visit her, but be vague about the purpose of the meeting; this exercise is much more fun when it is a surprise. When you meet her, take your time reading your letter. This single act of writing the Gratitude Letter and delivering it can be hugely impactful on boosting wellbeing and happiness.

Friendship
People have a deep need for friendships and to be socially connected to others. Nurturing, positive relationships is one of the most powerful and consistent predictors of good mental and physical health. To enhance your connection with people, there is a wonderful technique created by Professor Shelly Gable, called Active Constructive Responding. Use Active Constructive Responding to help people celebrate the good. Sharing good news contributes to wellbeing above and beyond the impact of the good event itself. Gable calls this effect capitalising and explains that as people tell their story, they re-live and savour the experience and draw more meaning and fulfilment from it. This leaves the person feeling more connected to you because you helped them to increase their positive emotions, thereby deepening your relationship. You can look at my blog where I explain how to use Active Constructive Responding.

So there you have it. Some simple tools for greater wellbeing and life satisfaction that will buffer against depression. Take them as a gift for Christmas that will bring you far reaching happiness long after the material presents have been opened. Merry Christmas everyone. May you have a very safe, fun, love-filled Christmas.