Month: June 2022 Page 1 of 2

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”  Oscar Wilde.

There’s a sign in my office that I’ve just glanced at. “In a world where you can be anything, be yourself!” I believe that in life, it’s so important to be who you really are and true to yourself. It helps to create an inner peace and contentment.

To be yourself isn’t always easy. It requires courage, determination and lots of self-discipline because we face peer pressure all our life to be a certain way to “fit in.” This particularly affects us in our childhood and young adult years.

It’s not always easy to stay true to yourself because deep down we all want to be accepted and feel part of the crowd.

We live in a very material world and following the rise in consumerism we’re bombarded daily with numerous marketing messages influencing us to buy stuff. We are encouraged to look, dress and act a certain way.

All of these messages can influence us to become what we think others want us to be and can lead us to overly worry about what people think of us.

On this theme, there is a great quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson; He said “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

Why not pause for a moment and consider what it means to you to “be yourself?”

Our true self is who we really are when we let go of the stories, labels and judgements that we have placed on ourselves in order to “fit in.” It’s who we are without our social masks and pretentiousness.

For me, part of being ourselves is about making full use of the natural gifts and talents that we’ve been given. These are a unique combination. When we fully use them, we fulfil our true purpose and unlimited potential.

I believe a large part of being yourself is coming from the heart and speaking with honesty, clarity, pure intention and acting with integrity. If you speak from the heart, you will never be lost for words! This is worth bearing in mind if you’re ever called upon to do a presentation.

Being yourself is essential when you have an important and tough decision to make. At times like these having some quiet time to tune into the messages and feelings contained in your heart can help. This enables you to act upon the wisdom of your intuition.

Being yourself is about being real, authentic and not fake. In doing so, you decide that you are prepared to show your vulnerability and to be human. It demonstrates that you stand up for what you believe to be true even though you may be a lone voice.

When part of a debate or discussion, it’s about carefully listening and weighing up the merits and pro’s/cons of each opinion and argument, whilst maintaining an open mind and objectivity.

Once you’ve completed this process, you’re able to make a decision on who/what to support based on how you feel about what you’ve heard and considered. In this way, you align with your values and who you really are. You remain true to yourself.

It’s also about not doing things to merely get attention or to please others. We can learn much from watching small children. You will notice how free from attachments they are. They care little about what people think about them. They are just in the moment and more often than not they’re following their joy.

If you are overly concerned about what others think of you, frequently ask yourself “How would I act right now if I had no cares about what others think of me?”

This week, why not take a few moments out to reflect and consider if there are any situations in your life that require you to speak your truth.? If so, what will be your first step?

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk

“I try to be grateful for the abundance of the blessings that I have, for the journey that I’m on and to relish each day as a gift.” James McGreevey.

An abundant mindset is when you believe that there are enough resources for us all. When you think about life in this way, it takes on another meaning and has a different look and feel to it.

In life we have a choice about where we put our attention. We can focus on our weaknesses, our limitations, lack of opportunities and what’s missing in our life. We can have a lack of appreciation for our material possessions and what we’ve earned. This can be combined with not fully appreciating the people in our life and what they bring to us.

In contrast we can choose to focus our time and mind in an abundant way and appreciate all that we have including our possessions and the contributions people make to enrich our life.

We can have gratitude for our natural strengths and talents, the opportunities and all the experiences that we have and have had previously. In this state we will view any challenges we’ve encountered as a lesson or insight instead of a chance to see ourselves as a victim.

The mindset we choose to adopt will have an impact on our body and energy. When we think abundantly, we feel more optimistic and this helps us to feel lighter and more energised. As a result, we’re more likely to attract positive circumstances as our self-talk will be more empowering and drive positive behaviours which help to create great results.

Conversely, a scarcity mindset will have a negative impact on our mood and energy levels. Our bodies will feel heavy; our self-talk will be negative and create dis-empowering behaviours and poor results. This kind of mindset can be a self-fulfilling prophecy and create more results that reinforce a feeling of lack.

Thinking in an abundant way contributes to a feeling of security. It helps us to feel confident and have high self-worth levels. As a result, we feel secure when interacting with others. We form positive relationships, where we look to be collaborative rather than overly competitive and create “win/win” scenarios.

In contrast when we have feelings of lack, we may have difficulty sharing credit or recognising the contribution of others. The scarcity mentality is limiting and may mean that too much time and energy is wasted on conflict, negative thinking and repressing creativity. On the other hand, the abundant mentality is fearless; it’s free and immune to criticism.

In order to feel abundant, we need to get better at noticing and recognising what’s available to us in terms of opportunities, resources and choices. We aren’t wired to notice things or be particularly observant.

This was shown to be the case in a 1999 Harvard University study where they showed people a video of people passing a basketball around. Participants were asked to count the number of times the ball was passed, which sounds like a simple enough task.

After watching the video, the participants were asked if they had noticed anything unusual. More than half of them didn’t have a clue what the researchers were talking about. They had missed the fact that a person dressed as a gorilla had walked onto the court beat its chest and walked off.

This research shows that the mind sees what we tell it to see. In the experiment the brain was tasked with counting the number of passes not spotting a gorilla!

It doesn’t make us stupid if we fail to notice things, it just depends on what our brain has been primed to see.  If we focus on scarcity, we will find evidence to support this. If we want to notice abundance, we will find it.

In life, we get what we look for! What we choose to focus on grows.

This week, why not take a few moments to reflect and consider which mindset you adopt the majority of the time. Do you spend sufficient time thinking in an abundant way and noticing opportunity and things to appreciate?

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk

 “Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, those are life-altering lessons.” Jessica Lange.

It’s important if we are to be the best that we can be personally and professionally that we learn to use our energy and mind in the most productive ways possible. One way we can do this is to develop greater inner peace and calm in our lives.

A key element of inner peace and calm is to be more accepting of situations and people. Rather than expending lots of energy wishing things and people were different or trying to rewrite history, we have to start working with “what is.”

Acceptance is defined in the dictionary as “The action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered.”  It is also defined as “The process or fact of being received as adequate, valid or suitable and agreement with or belief in an idea or explanation.”

In having greater acceptance in our life, we can start to focus our minds, time and energy on how we want things to be. With this clarity we will move things forward from where we are now. We can decide what we can do to build upon our current position and develop it into what we desire and aspire to.

There is a great quote by Socrates which we can use as a reminder of the power of acceptance and how it helps us deal effectively with change. He said “The secret of change is to focus your energy not on fighting the old but building the new.”

How many times have you fallen into the trap, after something hasn’t gone as planned or as you envisaged, of replaying the situation in your mind and wishing it had a different outcome? This is easy to do but a pointless exercise because no matter how many times you replay it, what happened isn’t going to change. It is what it is.

Being more accepting of others allows us to be in a state of non- judgement and to have no malice towards them. As a result, we have greater tolerance of other people’s views and opinions. We accept people as they are rather than how we would like them to be. We start to look at their strengths and qualities rather than their flaws and weaknesses.

We can apply this principle to ourselves too and become more accepting of who we are. We can develop pride in our qualities, our accomplishments and achievements. We can expand our appreciation of the value we bring to the world and the contribution we make.

We can accept and use our natural gifts and talents rather than spend time and energy focusing on our weaknesses and what we lack. This also allows us to stop wasting time and energy comparing ourselves to others. Instead, we become more single minded and focused on our goals and desires.

When we encounter difficulty or challenges, we can choose to accept what is, take the lesson from it and move on with greater wisdom. After all, tomorrow is another day.

We can learn much from Reinhold Niebuhr’s quotation “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

This week, why not take a few moments to reflect and ask yourself, where do I need to develop greater acceptance of situations and people personally and professionally? What would be the benefits to me if I were to do so?

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk