Transformation for Women
10 Keys for Establishing change in your life and Achieving your Goals
As a therapist/coach in private practice today, I see many women in my practice. There are many reasons they come in with Depression, Anxiety/Panic, Chronic autoimmune diseases, extreme low self-worth, obesity, and acute stress and personal growth. All of these are common occurrences in life and should be dealt with as early as possible.
Our world is full of stress. Performance stress, time and deadline stress, marital stress, addiction stress etc…you name it, stress is all around us. It is difficult and very distracting to our personal fulfillment. Clearing the path for more personal clarity is essential to personal growth.
Thinking through the origin of our problems is sometimes difficult. Most people site the origin to whatever the loudest gong is pointing to. Most people, in fact, don’t really understand their own symptoms and the relevant causes. You can, in fact, make changes without knowing all the causes. There are proven ways to change ourselves with just a little help.
So…whatever your goal, changes you may want to make or goals you want to pursue, I want to help you break it down to simple ways to begin to establish changes for the ultimate transformation.
Key Strategies for Beginning Personal Change
- Be aware of how you feel mentally, physically. (Increased personal awareness)
- Learn how to assess your coping skills (how you react and cope with certain problems) and what skills you’d like to develop.
- Begin to learn how to reduce your physiological stress through stress management skills such as mindfulness exercises, meditation, prayer, exercise, breathing techniques and more.
- Write down your goals on paper – this activates your commitment. Then share it with your best friend.
- Write down how you will achieve your goals/what blocks may get in the way.
- Develop a very strategic plan to achieve the goal.
- Keep your mind focused on the positive.
- BE BAD – (This is your BELIEF, ATTITUDE, and DETERMINATION. Focusing on developing these in a positive, growth-oriented way.)
- Don’t be afraid to move through your fears.
- Get a therapist or coach to help you move through your obstacles. We all need support and guidance at times.
Sheryl Sandberg, author of Lean In and CEO of Face book says in her book, “ We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in. We internalize the negative messages we get throughout our lives—the messages that say it’s wrong to be outspoken, aggressive, more powerful than men. We lower our own expectations of what we can achieve. We continue to do the majority of housework and childcare. We compromise our career goals to make room for partners and children who may not even exist yet. Compared to our male colleagues, few of us aspire to senior positions.”
This is a powerful statement and very true. It is up to each of us to reach out and begin in small or large steps to reach for our dreams, goals, and aspirations. Hopefully, you can begin today by getting out that paper and writing down your dreams for yourself. I wish you the best. Now go out and “Embrace Life”.
Sheryl Sandberg is a role model for women and men—She will inspire you to be successful. As Facebook COO, Lean In: Woman, Work, and the Will to Succeed author, and the first woman to sit on Facebook’s board, she’s has learned along her journey—and has faced many challenges throughout it all.
In her honor, we’ve pulled some of her best quotes to help motivate you. So, whether you’re looking for some inspiration to reach your goals.
“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”
“Being confident and believing in your own self-worth is necessary to achieving your potential.”
“We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in.”
“What I tell everyone, and I really do for myself is, I have a long-run dream, which is I want to work on stuff that I think matters.”
“It is the ultimate luxury to combine passion and contribution. It’s also a very clear path to happiness.”
“Trying to do it all and expecting that it all can be done exactly right is a recipe for disappointment. Perfection is the enemy.”
“Every woman I know, particularly the senior ones, has been called too aggressive at work. We know in gender blind studies that men are more aggressive in their offices than women. We know that. Yet we’re busy telling all the women that they’re too aggressive. That’s the issue.”
“I think when tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”
“I feel really grateful to the people who encouraged me and helped me develop. Nobody can succeed on their own.”
“Taking initiative pays off. It is hard to visualize someone as a leader if she is always waiting to be told what to do.”
“Knowing that things could be worse should not stop us from trying to make them better.”
“If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.”
“Bring your whole self to work. I don’t believe we have a professional self Monday through Friday and a real self the rest of the time. It is all professional and it is all personal.”
“Leadership is not bullying and leadership is not aggression. Leadership is the expectation that you can use your voice for good. That you can make the world a better place.”
“When you’re more valuable, the people around you will do more to make it work.”
“We need women at all levels, including the top, to change the dynamic, reshape the conversation, to make sure women’s voices are heard and heeded, not overlooked and ignored.”
“Leadership belongs to those who take it.”
“Feeling confident—or pretending that you feel confident—is necessary to reach for opportunities. It’s a cliché, but opportunities are rarely offered; they’re seized.”
“If I had to embrace a definition of success, it would be that success is making the best choices we can…and accepting them.”
“We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change.”
“The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.”
“The upside of painful knowledge is so much greater than the downside of blissful ignorance.”
“If you do please everyone, you are not making enough progress.”