Make Your Mark in 2011 - 8 Top Tips

Want to make changes in the coming year? Your not alone, each year 40% - 45% of adults make one or more resolution or goal for themselves. Some research suggests that 75% make it past the first week, and 46% make it past 6 months. Okay so alot of us break our resolutions, but statistics on New Year's resolutions show that setting goals for yourself is still a good idea because you are 10 times more likely to attain your goal, rather than people who don't explicitly make goals.

Top Tips for NY Resolutions:

1. Write down your goals - this helps you get clear about what you want.
2. Be as detailed as possible with the resolution you make, rather than just a vague statement like "I want to lose weight", be specific and say exactly how much by when.
3. Writing your goal as though it has already been achieved is a porwerful way to trick your mind into acting accordingly.
4. Make sure your goals excite you - this may sound obvious, but if you are not motivated and excited by your goals you are very unlikely to achieve them.
5. Put a plan in place once you have written down your resolutions about how you are going to achieve them.
6. Commit to mini goals along the way to celebrate your progress.
7. Don't become overwhelmed or use your goals as another way to undermine your self esteem if you don't reach them. Be kind yo yourself and make small changes that are sustainable.
8. Be clear about who you are making your NY Resolutions for and make them for you and not for the approval of others.

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day."   - Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Go for it and on a slightly funny note, take heed from the words of Bridget Jones and start your resolution on the 2nd of January!:

"I do think New Year's resolutions can't technically be expected to begin on New Year's Day, don't you? Since, because it's an extension of New Year's Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system. Also dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second."

- Helen Fielding, "Bridget Jones's Diary"

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY CLIENTS AND FRIENDS

What you should know about advertising & your self worth

In our fast paced, workaholic, consumer obsessed society now more than ever we are feeling immense pressure to look good, be slim, own the latest beauty products and the hippest bag all in an attempt to keep up with the Jones’ or should I say the Hiltons’. Australia, the UK and America are three of the richest countries in the world, but recent reports suggest that we feel far more deprived than our predecessors. The reason for this in part is due to our insatiable appetite for all things celebrity. We are bombarded with trivial information about the lives of the rich and famous. We often aspire to have the things that our favourite celeb has, whether it be a Gucci handbag or the latest pair of Jimmy Shoes.

Advertisers are fully aware of the power of celebrity endorsements and use them to sell everything from slimming aids to hair dye. L’oreal is a truly multinational company and boosts ownership of the Body Shop and luxury brands such as Ralph Lauren and Giorgo Armani beauty products. Their infamous slogan ‘because your worth it’ was reportedly developed to justify the higher costs of their products compared to other leading brands. The slogan has proved hugely successfully and creates the illusion that you deserve to treat yourself to L’oreal products, partly due to the celebrity endorsements. This links into our feelings of self worth and esteem and thus we feel that if we purchase the products by L’oreal we are in some way worthier than if purchased another brand. Take for instance the latest advert for the new L’oreal eye roller. The advert says one is sold every eight seconds and asks do you have yours yet. This has the intention of making the viewer feel like they are missing out on something. Very clever marketing that works.

Become aware of how advertising affects you and more importantly your feelings of self worth. There has been an increase in the number of psychologists now working in the field of consumer psychology to describe, predict and influence our buying decisions. As we are being bombarded with more and more choices, advertisers are finding new ways to play on our emotions and encourage that all important purchase.

At the same time as a rise in psychologists working in consumer psychologists, psychologists have seen a dramatic increase in the last ten years of clients who are addicted to shopping and cosmetic surgery. Clients are using these quick fixes to make themselves feel better, only to find that it is never enough. They need to make changes within in order to feel worthy without the latest bag or beauty fad.

If you know that you are influenced by celebrities to purchase the latest slimming aid or designer pair of shoes, gently probe a little more detail to discover why you feel this way. Are there parts of you that does not feel worthy or content with who you are? Why not ditch the beauty magazines with airbrushed celebrities and mute the adverts on TV and read something uplifting and inspirational instead. Remember you are a magnificent unique individual and you are worth it!

Who is the Real YOU?

How do you view your real self? Is it in a way that you would not share with others openly or frankly or are there certain parts of you that you would not openly verbalise to anyone? In order to have the life you want you must get honest about the person you are and celebrate being you.

Get clear about what you really want, not what you think you should want or what others want, but what things come back to you again and again and will not be silenced unless you act on them. We all have a sense of what we would like our ideal lives to look like, but all to often this is where it stops and the excuses begin. Take a baby step today to living your ideal life and you will be surprised by how much better you feel just by doing something, rather than talking or thinking about it.

“Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.” Margaret Young

People, things and situations gradually unfold to guide us further along our path once we commit to honouring what we truly want and who we truly are. The well known humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers spoke about our real and ideal selves and said the greater the gap between the two the more suffering we will experience. Therefore it is imperative to be honest with yourself about your limitations and most importantly your potential. If you make disparging remarks about yourself, stop it. Whether it is in the form of self talk or how you describe yourself to others it is very damaging and works by reinforcing those feelings about yourself (that are often untrue). Start today by honouring who you are and start to try and embrace the parts of you which you have trouble liking. Go on, you are worth it.

It's Good to say NO!

If you are not particularly assertive you may have real trouble verbalising the little word 'no'. The word carries lots of unpleasant associations and can be emotionally loaded. That's why so many of us nice, friendly, people pleaser types struggle with this word, even when we know it needs to be said. In my experience the top ten reasons we may be afraid to say no include:

1. Bring rejected
2. Disappointing others
3. Being judged
4. An awkwardness that may arise
5. Scared of embarrassment
6. Triggering an uncomfortable exchange
7. Fearful
8. Not feel entitled to saying no
9. Feel unworthy
10. Feel selfish

I have experienced all of these feelings at one time or another and as a consequence not stood my ground when people have taken advantage. When you do not have the courage to say no, what you are really saying is the other person is more important and valuable than you. This simply is not so. You deserve to be heard and valued as much as anyone else. It may also be a way of feeling sorry for yourself and allowing you to avoid dealing with personal problems. In counselling psychology boundaries are spoken of often and what has been found is that many people with low self esteem do not set up healthy boundaries with those around them. They allow others to continually take from them, even though they have a niggling feeling that it is not right. Put simply a boundary is a system of limit setting that protects you from being a victim.

If this resonates with you and you know you need to learn to say no, then start today. Increase your awareness of things that you say yes to, when you really mean no. For example, you may be invited to something and on impulse you say yes, but afterwards you realise you don't want to go and you then spend unnecessary time thinking about how you will get out of atending. Successful people do not do this, so why should you. Next time you are invited to something, take your time to think it over rather than just saying yes because you don't want to disappoint the other person.

Once you starting saying no people around you begin to respect you far more than they did previously. As the saying goes if you don't love yourself, how can you expect someone else to. You may also want to pinpoint where your people pleasing behaviour originated. It can be from messages we picked up from our parents, teachers etc or our place of work. However, regardless of where it stems from, it can be changed in a relatively short space of time once you are mindful of it.