When you trust your inner guidance, it often leads you to take steps that are in alignment with who you are.  In doing this, you will naturally feel in harmony.  However, there are times when you are moving beyond what is comfortable and trying things that are new.  Although your inner guidance tells you to take the leap, you sense that you are lacking self-confidence.

At those moments, you may say, “How do I develop self-confidence?” and turn inward for guidance.  For me, the answers are these: (1) Seek skill confidence (2) Seek feedback. 

Skill confidence

The deal is that when you seek self-confidence  you’re going to end up chasing your tail, for a variety of reasons that I won’t get into in detail tonight.  Let’s just go with this:  self-confidence is actually the wrong target.  What we had better work on instead is skill-confidence.

So, let’s say you don’t feel confident because you have a speech to give & don’t think you’re that swell of a speaker.  At that point, you can search for self-confidence or seek skill-confidence.  If you seek skill confidence, you’ll practice the speech a lot, until you are skilled at delivering it.   You might need to practice in front of others several times, not just in front of a mirror.  You might even need to give yourself a “dress rehearsal” wherever the speech is going to be.  Bottom line, though, is that creating the result of skill-confidence in this area will require you to do what behaviourists call “over-rehearsal,” which means rehearsing to the point that it is easy as pie.

This will give you skill-confidence so that when you deliver the speech, you will feel comfortable.

This can apply to anything that you can call a skill—from social skills, to occupational skills, to working skills, to communication skills, to relationship skills, to dating skills, etc. 

Perfect Practice

When you practice, you’ll want to improve as you go.  You certainly don’t want to keep practicing something incorrectly!  Like Suzuki said, “Perfect practice makes perfect.”  So, extending this to the Suzuki method for piano (which all of my kids studied starting at age 2), when my little son started to practice piano, if I didn’t sit there with him and help him, he would end up learning the song using the wrong notes and poor hand position.  Bad habits can develop due to a lack of self-correction.  Any of you who’ve studied music know exactly what I mean—you occasionally need a helping hand to get you on course, keep you on course, or take you to the next level in your playing.

That being said, anytime you’re building a skillset, it would be a good idea to figure out a way to get some type of feedback so that you can course correct as you practice.  So, when I was learning to do therapy many years ago, I had 4 years of supervised practice–3 years of predoctoral practie and 1 year of postdoctoral practice.  Over the course of those years, I had around 8 different psychologists have taking turns teaching me.  They spent months with me, listened to me doing therapy via recordings, watched me work, read my notes & reports, gave me feedback for several hours a week, broke down what I was doing, and more.  I learned a ton that I couldn’t have learned without that training opportunity.  I got feedback from my patients too.  Then, I became a supervisor and did the same for other budding students–and guess what–I get feedback from my students too.

How do you get feedback?  One way might be to simply track and record yourself.  This works great with numerical improvements, like when runners time themselves and race against their own times.  There’s no arguing with the clock.  There are many sources of information on the internet which will direct you to self-improvements in a variety of areas.

Occasionally, however, it is helpful to have direct feedback from others (such as a friend, mentor, a support group, a customer, a client, or a coach).  The reason is that you might be blind to some “tweaking” that others easily notice (and you don’t). 

For example, many years ago I heard James Malinchak talking about how he shot free-throws for years, hoping to become a great free thrower.  Time after time he’d miss.

But, once day, a coach walked down from the bleachers—he’d been sitting watching the young man miss shot after shot for almost a year, if I recall the story correctly. 

He said, “Son, I used to be a coach.  I have a tip for you that will help you make the shot you’re trying to get—if you want to know—and if you don’t want to know, enjoy practicing for another year or more.” 

Reluctantly and almost dismissively, James said, “What’s the tip?” 

The guy said, “Put your elbow in.  You’re sticking it out.  That’s why you’re missing all the shots.”  After James tried this, he started to make the shots.  Shot after shot.  And soon he was recruited by colleges for his basketball talent. 

James emphasized that this was why, from that day on, he always had a coach (not just for sports but for whatever area he was trying to get right—even speaking). 

In getting to know clients who are high-achieving professionals, CEO’s, successful athletes, scientists, and more,  I’ve noticed that the highly successful do this—they develop their skill-confidence and they seek feedback, because they know that this is how to go from good to great in their skills.

If you love learning about this kind of stuff, you’ll love our workshop.  RSVP and register now.

To your very fearless pursuits,

Pam Garcy, PhD

When you trust your inner guidance, it often leads you to take steps that are in alignment with who you are.  In doing this, you will naturally feel in harmony.  However, there are times when you are moving beyond what is comfortable and trying things that are new.  Although your inner guidance tells you to take the leap, you sense that you are lacking self-confidence.

At those moments, you may say, “How do I develop self-confidence?” and turn inward for guidance.  For me, the answers are these: (1) Seek skill confidence (2) Seek feedback. 

Skill confidence

The deal is that when you seek self-confidence  you’re going to end up chasing your tail, for a variety of reasons that I won’t get into in detail tonight.  Let’s just go with this:  self-confidence is actually the wrong target.  What we had better work on instead is skill-confidence.

So, let’s say you don’t feel confident because you have a speech to give & don’t think you’re that swell of a speaker.  At that point, you can search for self-confidence or seek skill-confidence.  If you seek skill confidence, you’ll practice the speech a lot, until you are skilled at delivering it.   You might need to practice in front of others several times, not just in front of a mirror.  You might even need to give yourself a “dress rehearsal” wherever the speech is going to be.  Bottom line, though, is that creating the result of skill-confidence in this area will require you to do what behaviourists call “over-rehearsal,” which means rehearsing to the point that it is easy as pie.

This will give you skill-confidence so that when you deliver the speech, you will feel comfortable.

This can apply to anything that you can call a skill—from social skills, to occupational skills, to working skills, to communication skills, to relationship skills, to dating skills, etc. 

Perfect Practice

When you practice, you’ll want to improve as you go.  You certainly don’t want to keep practicing something incorrectly!  Like Suzuki said, “Perfect practice makes perfect.”  So, extending this to the Suzuki method for piano (which all of my kids studied starting at age 2), when my little son started to practice piano, if I didn’t sit there with him and help him, he would end up learning the song using the wrong notes and poor hand position.  Bad habits can develop due to a lack of self-correction.  Any of you who’ve studied music know exactly what I mean—you occasionally need a helping hand to get you on course, keep you on course, or take you to the next level in your playing.

That being said, anytime you’re building a skillset, it would be a good idea to figure out a way to get some type of feedback so that you can course correct as you practice.  So, when I was learning to do therapy many years ago, I had 4 years of supervised practice–3 years of predoctoral practie and 1 year of postdoctoral practice.  Over the course of those years, I had around 8 different psychologists have taking turns teaching me.  They spent months with me, listened to me doing therapy via recordings, watched me work, read my notes & reports, gave me feedback for several hours a week, broke down what I was doing, and more.  I learned a ton that I couldn’t have learned without that training opportunity.  I got feedback from my patients too.  Then, I became a supervisor and did the same for other budding students–and guess what–I get feedback from my students too.

How do you get feedback?  One way might be to simply track and record yourself.  This works great with numerical improvements, like when runners time themselves and race against their own times.  There’s no arguing with the clock.  There are many sources of information on the internet which will direct you to self-improvements in a variety of areas.

Occasionally, however, it is helpful to have direct feedback from others (such as a friend, mentor, a support group, a customer, a client, or a coach).  The reason is that you might be blind to some “tweaking” that others easily notice (and you don’t). 

For example, many years ago I heard James Malinchak talking about how he shot free-throws for years, hoping to become a great free thrower.  Time after time he’d miss.

But, once day, a coach walked down from the bleachers—he’d been sitting watching the young man miss shot after shot for almost a year, if I recall the story correctly. 

He said, “Son, I used to be a coach.  I have a tip for you that will help you make the shot you’re trying to get—if you want to know—and if you don’t want to know, enjoy practicing for another year or more.” 

Reluctantly and almost dismissively, James said, “What’s the tip?” 

The guy said, “Put your elbow in.  You’re sticking it out.  That’s why you’re missing all the shots.”  After James tried this, he started to make the shots.  Shot after shot.  And soon he was recruited by colleges for his basketball talent. 

James emphasized that this was why, from that day on, he always had a coach (not just for sports but for whatever area he was trying to get right—even speaking). 

In getting to know clients who are high-achieving professionals, CEO’s, successful athletes, scientists, and more,  I’ve noticed that the highly successful do this—they develop their skill-confidence and they seek feedback, because they know that this is how to go from good to great in their skills.

If you love learning about this kind of stuff, you’ll love our workshop.  RSVP and register now.

To your very fearless pursuits,

Pam Garcy, PhD

Dear Readers,

When you tune into your inner guidance, you may occasionally face the battle of your mind.  Your negative thoughts might get in the way of you tuning into your inner guidance.  The emotions which arise are definitely out-of-alignment with your natural state of being, which is expanding, rather than contracting.  When you are in a place of contraction, it is helpful to learn how to shift out of it.

This blog deals with these ideas in relation to the goal of being able to tap more deeply into your inner guidance by shifting out of contracted emotion.

If you’d like to join us at Sunday’s Dallas Club Fearless workshop, you will need to join & then, please RSVP now & complete your registration via paypal.com (select send payment to drgarcy@aol.com).

The Sixth Theme that emerged is:  How do I deal with the battle in my mind?  How do I deal with my own negative thoughts?

Yesterday’s e-mail was about goal attainment.  Today’s is about the battle inside the mind.

One of the things that sometimes stops us from taking steps toward our goals is our own negative thoughts.  In fact, this is a large part of the work I do with my clients in my practice.  For example, if you were in therapy with me, we’d look at how you contribute to your own emotional pain through ideas that you’ve decided to believe—you may have held certain beliefs about yourself, others, and life for so long, that you might even take your ideas for granted, even when these ideas cause you pain. 

In addition, we’d look at how the emotional pain detracts or contributes to reaching your goals.  Often, people think that by creating an emotionally painful experience, they’ll feel more motivated to move forward.  I get an image of an army seargeant yelling at a private to motivate prompt action.  But, in reality, when we really stop and examine the effect of self-criticism as a motivator, we often find that self-criticism creates the type of emotional pain that frequently shuts people down instead of motivating them, thereby slowing down their progress.

Author David Firth, recently wrote a book called, Change Your World One Word At A Time.  David is a linguist & so semantics are quite important to him.  I recently met him at Steve Chandler’s author roundtable in Phoenix.  David’s book is a quick read and a good illustration of how changing even one of the harsh words you use on yourself can help you feel more enlivened. 

I was thinking about this mental battle the other day, knowing that I was going to write this e-mail to you guys…I started to compare crummy thoughts with burglars. 

If you don’t mind, entertain me for a moment with this illustrative metaphor.

So, if a burglar were to walk right up to your house, ring the doorbell, and say, “Hi, let me in.  I want to rob you blind.  I want to make sure you have nothing left inside & that your home is completely empty by the time I’m done.”  Would you let him in?  Of course not.

Yet, if we have a crummy thought, a thought that will rob us blind emotionally & leave us feeling empty and depleted, we often just welcome it & wave it right in!  C’mon in, crappy thought!  Yes, sit right here–how about the box seats, inside my heart?

We just don’t watch out for our thoughts–even those which really could become unwanted predators.  Yes, a really crummy belief can be just as damaging to the psychological & spiritual home as a criminal can be to our physical home.

So, maybe it’s time to stop waving these thoughts right in & learn to be a little more intentional about it.

How do we start?  Well, maybe it’s time to simply sit, in observation of our thoughts, and just watch what emerges, with a pen & pad in hand.

You don’t even have to analyze or fight what emerges.  Just sit and observe.  What types of thoughts enter your mind without you even planning on them or inviting them (like surprise uninvited house guests)?  Jot them down.

Notice what feelings go along with these thoughts (happy, sad, angry, scared, guilty, ashamed, etc.) 

And what actions do you feel like taking–or running away from–as a result of these thoughts?

Don’t even challenge your thoughts for now.  Just become aware of them, observe them coming and, if you don’t attach to them, simply disappearing.

Steve Hayes, the founder of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, says that thoughts are sort of like cars that drive by our houses.  You don’t have to run out and jump onto every car/thought for a joyride.  In fact, you don’t have to jump onto any of those cars.  You can let the cars pass and you can let your thoughts pass.

But, if you find yourself attaching or already attached to a thought, what can you do? 

• You can accept it, first of all.  You’re simply attaching to a thought.  It is okay; all of us humans do it.
• Then, you can get clear about the thought.  If you want to, you can ask yourself questions about the thought & hold it to the light for examination.
• If you ever care to learn more about this process, come visit our Dallas REBT CBT Meetup group—we do this sort of stuff all the time & talk about all the various methods of releasing thoughts & how to apply REBT to a variety of challenges.  For example, our next meetup is about procrastination & the thoughts behind it.  It would be great to see you there.

Over the years, I’ve gathered questions from Ellis, Beck, Meichenbaum, and others.  I thought you might like this list of questions I use—you can play with these & see if any shift you out of the battle in your mind, allow you to release the crummy thought that plagues you, or help you into peaceful & harmonious thinking:

1.     Am I angry at myself for having this thought/not accepting what I’m creating?  Can I accept that I am where I am now, and that all humans have thoughts that arise unbidden & that are inadvertently adopted?  Can I forgive myself for being human & having feelings?

2.      Is my idea/thought true?  Do I know with full certainty that it is true? What evidence do I have for it?  What evidence do I have against it?

3.     Does it make sense?  Are there any other logical explanations for this?  Does it have to follow that because I want this, I must have it?

4.     Am I demanding the reality be different?

5.     How does it help me to reach my goals?  Does it get in the way of me reaching my goals?

6.     What is the impact, what is the cost, what is the price I pay for holding onto this idea?

7.     What is the best that could happen if the situation I fear comes to pass?

8.     What is the worst that could happen if the situation I fear comes to pass?  Then what would I do to cope?  And then? And then?  Extend it out over time & tune into how you’d cope.

9.     Who would I be without the thought that I’m believing right now?

10.  What else could I tell myself that would empower & embolden me, instead of weakening me or making me feel badly?

11.  How have I spoken to myself differently in the past to create a better outcome?  What did I say to myself that really worked, when a similar situation arose & I worked it out successfully?

12.  What does it mean to me if the idea is true?  What would that mean? (and so on)

13.  What does it mean about me if the idea is true? What would that mean? (and so on)

14.  What does it mean in general if the idea is true?  What would that mean? (and so on)

15.  How am I putting myself/others down about this? 

16.  How am I making this worse?  Is there anything worse?

17.  Are there shades of grey I’m not seeing, due to black-and-white thinking?

18.  Could I let go of the idea for a second?  If I could let go of the idea for a second, then will I let it go altogether?  When?

19.  What do I say or do in my life to create joy/power?  If I want a different result, what different response could I give to this?

20.  Is it okay to get help with this?  Is it okay to distract myself?  Is it okay to engage in something positive or act against my unhelpful idea (example—acting happy when I’m sad)?

There are lots of other questions you can ask as well.  The idea is that we don’t want to assume that just because we have an idea that we’ve believed, that we have to KEEP believing the idea.  There’s always room for change and growth.

Thanks for reading,

Dr. Pam

PS–I have 1 more timeslot available if anyone is interested in a pre-coaching consultation at no charge.  I am offering only 3 of these to meetup members and 2 are filled.  Grab the spot now if you want it.  First come first served!  Just e-mail me ASAP.  Thanks.

PPS–Follow me on twitter!

When you tune into your Inner Guidance, you will discover what goals are important to you. You can ask yourself, “What should I work on next?” and see what emerges. You can say, “Show me myself at my happiest,” and see what comes. Or, you can simply breathe and ask, “What do I want to create?” Any of these will lead to answers.

At that point, you can learn the strategies for reaching goals and attaining success. So, below, I will answer in response to these two types of questions I’ve received: I want Help and Support In Meeting My Goals/ How Do I Meet My Goals?

If you want to meet a goal, and if this goal is BIG to you, then read on. This essay is to help you to reach a goal that scares you a little and thereby stretches you beyond where you are now.

“Determine what specific goal you want to achieve. Then dedicate yourself to its attainment with unswerving singleness of purpose, the trenchant zeal of a crusader.”~ Paul J. Meyer

Okay, but how???? Obviously, there are many paths toward reaching your goals. You can find hundreds of lists on the internet. So, what I’m going to do is give you advise based upon what I’ve found works for my clients and for me.

It is going to look like a lot all at once—you don’t have to do all of these all at once, just start moving toward them. Even if you only do one of these, you’ll probably get closer to your goal than you would have.

First, when I work with coaching clients and therapy patients, I really want to get specific about what it is they want & the emotional state they want to feel when they achieve their goals. For example, if Bill wants to start a new business, he can think about himself in his business, efficiently & effectively running it. He can think about the type of business he wants to create. He can think about the customers who he’ll serve. He can consider how many hours he wants to work every day, and really develop a detailed fantasy about what he’ll be striving to achieve. Then, he can think about how he’ll feel when he realizes that he’s accomplished and achieved after reaching the goal. We will do this in our workshop: tapping into your emotional brain, as well as your intellect, to help you to leverage and motivate yourself toward your goal. It will also help you to gain clarity and therefore be more likely to create an outcome you want, rather than a more random outcome.

(Oh, by the way, for those of you who hide behind other people, I say this: If you are setting goals for someone else—and I know some of you are–then cut it out unless you have been invited to do so. Like author Byron Katie says to a daughter who is trying to set uninvited goals for her father, “If you’re both living his life, then who is here to live yours?”)

Second, write it down. For me, this is just something that is a good idea and fairly basic because (a) you can keep the written goal in a visible location (which keeps you focused on it) and (b) it is kind of fun to go back and revisit the goals you’ve already set and achieved. I usually write these down in my client’s files for them. Every so often, we return to the written goal to see how we’re doing and how far we’ve come. Sometimes, we reach the goals and my client is ready to stop coaching. Other times, my client realizes that he or she wants to continue, so we write down some new goals.

Third, write down as many reason as you can think of that you want to achieve this goal (or, if you are negatively motivated, write the reasons that you don’t want to continue on a presently self-defeating course). This way, when the going gets tough, you can read and re-read your list, which helps people to keep going. We want to create unwavering motivation. If you are not sure you want to commit to the goal, you might not work that hard on it. You want to psyche yourself up to a point that you are committed to reaching the goal. Think about a goal you set out to achieve and achieved—were you just a little committed, or very committed to making it happen? Did you know why you wanted to reach the goal? When you’re in touch with the why, you’ll be more likely to make it happen.

Fourth, find a mastermind group and commit to attending it regularly. At our workshop on Sunday, I’m going to allow time to go through the masterminding process with you. Some of you have already participated in this process through attending our monthly Dallas Club Fearless meetings. Some of you have come back and told us about successes you’ve reached since attending. It is definitely an amazing process.

I’ve been actively engaged in a weekly mastermind group of my own for the past 5 years and I’ve found it to be one of the most powerful secrets to helping me to reach my goals. This is actually one of the main reasons behind me starting Dallas Club Fearless, in addition to me wanting to share the messages and work of my mentor Steve Chandler, who started the International Club Fearless Mastermind. I wanted to bring the masterminding process to others who might benefit from it, but who might not know about it. Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, was one of the earliest authors to discuss the power of the mastermind. He talked about 2 or more minds coming together to focus upon a definite purpose. Jack Canfield taught our mastermind group how to mastermind & this is the process that I teach and use with you.

When you come to our Dallas CF full day workshop or attend one of our monthly meetings, you’ll experience the power of masterminding first hand. Depending upon how many people attend a given group, each person gets a set amount of time (usually around 8-10 minutes) where the entire group is focusing their full attention and intelligence on helping that person to solve whatever challenge they’re facing, to develop a clearer plan, or to take the next step in reaching their goals. It is amazing what happens in such a short, focused period of time when you get enough heads together. The premise behind the mastermind process is that when everyone puts their minds together, you not only harness each individual’s intelligence, but you also benefit from the synchrony of the collection of minds helping you (a collective consciousness, if you will). Anyway, all I know is it has worked wonders in my life, and my mentors (who are more successful than I am) also have mastermind groups.

Fifth, do your research: learn to google and go out for breakfast. Start learning about the goal you’ve decided to reach and google it. Like Texas author Austin Kleon says in his new bestseller Steal Like an Artist, “Google everything.” If you personally know anyone who has achieved your goal, it is time to ask some questions. Occasionally, it is as simple as a quick question. For example, at the last workshop, I asked one of the participants how he got onto TED and got an answer. Other times, you may have to pay for a consultation. So, you may have to hire someone to tell you how to get from where you are to where you want to be. But, often, there may be someone in your current circle of friends, family, or acquaintances who will gladly go out to breakfast with you and will let you ask them questions. Most of us are afraid to ask people how they did the thing we want to do. I hate to be too blunt, but I’ll just say it: we’re completely UNCONSCIOUS about how often other people would like to help us—and this lack of awareness makes us timid. Think about it—have you ever felt good when someone has asked you for advise or guidance on something? How did it feel to help that person, simply by sharing some parts of your experience? There are people who would experience joy from sharing their journeys with you—who is this person for you? If someone just came to mind, send them an e-mail and invite them to breakfast this week. I can’t wait to hear what you learn!

Sixth, attend workshops & seminars that (1) you’ve researched and (2) would support you in reaching your goal. I run workshops, so it may sound like I’m just promoting Sunday’s workshop on Fearlessly Going For Your Dreams. But, I’m not just saying this to encourage you to attend our upcoming workshop (though I’d love it if you were there since it is going to be fantastic for you)—I am telling you this so you’ll consider incorporating it into you plan.

Why? Because I know the power of workshops to help you to gain momentum. I know this because I regularly attend workshops and seminars. For example, I just got back from an author round-table in Phoenix, which was not only uplifting but very clarifying. At the end of this month, my plan is to attend a woman’s workshop in Santa Barbara. Next year, I’m already committed to five others, some professional, some personal. I usually attend several a year, and I learn a ton.

Attending workshops and seminars will help you to learn from experts while making friends with others who share your interests. Unexpected happenings emerge—new friendships, new ideas, new things to read, new avenues to take, newfound confidence, newfound faith, etc. Some of you are shy and are therefore scared to attend workshops. (When I first started attending them, I was probably more shy, timid, and scared to attend than any of you. So, here me when I say that there are great rewards waiting for you on the other side of your fear!)

I can’t speak for every workshop but the ones that I run are structured, so if you’re shy, these are really perfect for you. You can just show up as you are and leave it to me to guide you through. In the ones I run, the only request is for YOU to bring YOU to the table with great honesty.

Seventh, if you don’t know the steps to getting there, work backwards. Then, start taking action on whatever becomes the first step. This is an oddly useful strategy that I learned at a workshop run by James Malinchack, who teaches people how to speak to college audiences. He said that it came from a Harvard study on goal attainment. What you do is to write down your goal, then write down the step you think you might have taken right before getting to the goal, then the step before that, then the step before that, and so on, in reverse order, until you get to where you are now. Sometimes, writing down these steps backwards will reveal steps that we didn’t know we knew. Once you’ve determined your steps, you have the skeleton of a plan. Start taking action on the first step by breaking it down into smaller steps. I like to apply Jack Canfield’s rule-of-5: you take 5 action steps a day toward your goal. This way, you don’t bite off more than you can chew, and you have a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day. Others have said to use a rule-of-3. The main thing is to take consistent, measurable action each day. As John D. Rockefeller was fond of saying, “A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden ful of weeds.”

Eighth, pay attention to feedback. When I was writing my first book, I signed up for 6 months of coaching from Jack Canfield’s company; their company uses a team coaching approach, so you basically have access to 5 coaches over 6 months. At one point, I got some really harsh feedback about my writing from someone who read my manuscript. It was so discouraging, that I wanted to give up. Ken Porter, one of my coaches at the time, told me that when a plane travels from one city to another, it is off-course 90% of the time. As long as the plane is heading in the right direction, and as long as it keeps flying and correcting its course, it will eventually reach its destination. I loved this analogy, course corrected (as I would many times after that), and kept on “flying,” so to speak. At our workshop on Sunday, I’m planning a demonstration that will help you to learn to love feedback and start adjusting to it.

Ninth, find yourself a great coach. Now, I know some people say to get an accountability partner. I know that works for lots of people. I’ve done that myself—her name was Theresa Bolen; she is a best-selling author and lives in Japan. She writes about overcoming test anxiety and stuff like that. I love Theresa and it was an enriching experience getting to know her and holding each other accountable for a year. But, given that I have such a busy lifestyle, I eventually had to prioritize between having an accountability partner and having a coach, and coaching won out. It won out because it was more effective for me. Theresa and I are still friends, but the coaching was what worked better for me personally.

Like I’ve said, everything I’m recommending to you here, I am actively doing myself. So, I’m not BS’ng you. Given that, let’s talk about coaching.

There is enormous value in getting coached, preferably by a coach whose mere presence allows you to feel (1) comfortable (2) affirmed and (3) challenged.

Because coaching is such an intimate experience, I would recommend that you get to know your coach before you enroll. Spend time researching your coach and talking with him or her. Read something the coach has written, interview the coach on the phone, attend a workshop the coach runs, or do something else so that you can decide if you’d resonate with that person and would like them to be on your team.

In my experience most people who are coached obtain enormous value from the relationship, starting with the emotional support they get from their coach. The emotional support is a necessary component to goal attainment, because emotions will arise whenever you stretch yourself. They just do. It is part of the process. So, when I coach clients, for example, we not only have scheduled contact, but we sometimes have contact between our scheduled contact (e-mail, text, or phone, etc.). In getting to know my clients well, I’m able to figure out where they might need support. As a result, I might recommend specific things for them to read or listen to, so as to help them to stay on track.

Coaching will help you to gain clarity, setting and reaching goals that are in alignment with your life’s purpose and values. For example, sometimes my clients need help clarifying their life’s purpose and passions, so that their goals can remain aligned with what is most important.

In addition, coaching will help you to stay on track with your plan, and to hold yourself accountable. When I am scheduled to have a session with Steve, I typically send him an update so that he knows what work I’ve done, exactly where I’ve made progress, and just where I’m struggling. He’s ready to go before our session even starts, and because I know I’m sending it, I make sure I have something to report!

Coaching will help you to tune into your strengths and face your fears. Often, we either ignore our strengths or don’t realize what our strengths are. A great coach is wonderful at finding your strengths , reminding you of them, or introducing them to you. This process helps you tune into them, own them, and step into your gifts. Contact me through info@myinnerguide.com to arrange a consultation, if your inner guidance is telling you that I am the one you should work with.

Tenth, share your success secrets with others. In doing this, you will (a) remind yourself that you’ve attained your goals, thereby celebrating your success (b) grow your success–as Steve says, what you pay attention to grows, (c) help others to become successful, (d) adopt an abundance rather than scarcity mindset. The scarcity mindset is outdated & I think it comes from the era of the Great Depression. It is this: Hoard your secrets, act competitively; there’s not enough to go around. This mindset leads to isolation, depression, and fear, often preventing you from asking for help because you believe that others won’t want to help you. The abundance mindset is the mindset of the new generation of achievers. It is much happier, being a mindset of sharing and cooperation, rather than hoarding and competition. It is simply this: There’s plenty to go around, so why not share? This mindset has more evidence behind it; it will help you to feel less alone, feel more empowered, and use your goodness to empower others.

At our workshop on Sunday, we will work on this and more. If you want to empower yourself more fully, sign up for our workshop on Sunday.

Warmly,

Pam Garcy, PhD

P.S. Sometimes, people ask me, “What’s the difference between coaching and therapy?” Since I do both of these in my practice, I know there’s value in both. To me, therapy is useful for learning to understand yourself better, and learning to manage your emotions and behaviors effectively. Sometimes, therapy is essential in helping you to overcome or manage a mental illness, and therapy includes an initial psychodiagnostic interview to determine if you are currently exhibiting the symptoms of a mental illness. At times, psychologists like me perform psychological assessments as well, since these help us to compare your level of symptoms to norms. If you have wounds that you need to heal, therapy can help you with the emotional healing process. In addition, if you are struggling with a mental illness, therapy can help you and your family to cope with it and problem solve. At its best, the final phase of therapy resembles a coaching relationship, since the emphasis moves beyond the space of coping and into the space of creating an amazing life.

Coaching is typically more intensely focused upon helping you reach a specific goal, or working on a project that is in alignment with something of great value to you. For example, I recently finished relationship coaching with a couple, who were able to achieve the goals of greater intimacy, trust, and joy.

Both therapy and coaching are very valuable in helping people to reach goals, and I recommend that if you are interested, you embark upon this journey of self-understanding and growth as soon as you can.

When you tune into your Inner Guidance, you will discover what goals are important to you. You can ask yourself, “What should I work on next?” and see what emerges. You can say, “Show me myself at my happiest,” and see what comes. Or, you can simply breathe and ask, “What do I want to create?” Any of these will lead to answers.

At that point, you can learn the strategies for reaching goals and attaining success. So, below, I will answer in response to these two types of questions I’ve received: I want Help and Support In Meeting My Goals/ How Do I Meet My Goals?

If you want to meet a goal, and if this goal is BIG to you, then read on. This essay is to help you to reach a goal that scares you a little and thereby stretches you beyond where you are now.

“Determine what specific goal you want to achieve. Then dedicate yourself to its attainment with unswerving singleness of purpose, the trenchant zeal of a crusader.”~ Paul J. Meyer

Okay, but how???? Obviously, there are many paths toward reaching your goals. You can find hundreds of lists on the internet. So, what I’m going to do is give you advise based upon what I’ve found works for my clients and for me.

It is going to look like a lot all at once—you don’t have to do all of these all at once, just start moving toward them. Even if you only do one of these, you’ll probably get closer to your goal than you would have.

First, when I work with coaching clients and therapy patients, I really want to get specific about what it is they want & the emotional state they want to feel when they achieve their goals. For example, if Bill wants to start a new business, he can think about himself in his business, efficiently & effectively running it. He can think about the type of business he wants to create. He can think about the customers who he’ll serve. He can consider how many hours he wants to work every day, and really develop a detailed fantasy about what he’ll be striving to achieve. Then, he can think about how he’ll feel when he realizes that he’s accomplished and achieved after reaching the goal. We will do this in our workshop: tapping into your emotional brain, as well as your intellect, to help you to leverage and motivate yourself toward your goal. It will also help you to gain clarity and therefore be more likely to create an outcome you want, rather than a more random outcome.

(Oh, by the way, for those of you who hide behind other people, I say this: If you are setting goals for someone else—and I know some of you are–then cut it out unless you have been invited to do so. Like author Byron Katie says to a daughter who is trying to set uninvited goals for her father, “If you’re both living his life, then who is here to live yours?”)

Second, write it down. For me, this is just something that is a good idea and fairly basic because (a) you can keep the written goal in a visible location (which keeps you focused on it) and (b) it is kind of fun to go back and revisit the goals you’ve already set and achieved. I usually write these down in my client’s files for them. Every so often, we return to the written goal to see how we’re doing and how far we’ve come. Sometimes, we reach the goals and my client is ready to stop coaching. Other times, my client realizes that he or she wants to continue, so we write down some new goals.

Third, write down as many reason as you can think of that you want to achieve this goal (or, if you are negatively motivated, write the reasons that you don’t want to continue on a presently self-defeating course). This way, when the going gets tough, you can read and re-read your list, which helps people to keep going. We want to create unwavering motivation. If you are not sure you want to commit to the goal, you might not work that hard on it. You want to psyche yourself up to a point that you are committed to reaching the goal. Think about a goal you set out to achieve and achieved—were you just a little committed, or very committed to making it happen? Did you know why you wanted to reach the goal? When you’re in touch with the why, you’ll be more likely to make it happen.

Fourth, find a mastermind group and commit to attending it regularly. At our workshop on Sunday, I’m going to allow time to go through the masterminding process with you. Some of you have already participated in this process through attending our monthly Dallas Club Fearless meetings. Some of you have come back and told us about successes you’ve reached since attending. It is definitely an amazing process.

I’ve been actively engaged in a weekly mastermind group of my own for the past 5 years and I’ve found it to be one of the most powerful secrets to helping me to reach my goals. This is actually one of the main reasons behind me starting Dallas Club Fearless, in addition to me wanting to share the messages and work of my mentor Steve Chandler, who started the International Club Fearless Mastermind. I wanted to bring the masterminding process to others who might benefit from it, but who might not know about it. Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, was one of the earliest authors to discuss the power of the mastermind. He talked about 2 or more minds coming together to focus upon a definite purpose. Jack Canfield taught our mastermind group how to mastermind & this is the process that I teach and use with you.

When you come to our Dallas CF full day workshop or attend one of our monthly meetings, you’ll experience the power of masterminding first hand. Depending upon how many people attend a given group, each person gets a set amount of time (usually around 8-10 minutes) where the entire group is focusing their full attention and intelligence on helping that person to solve whatever challenge they’re facing, to develop a clearer plan, or to take the next step in reaching their goals. It is amazing what happens in such a short, focused period of time when you get enough heads together. The premise behind the mastermind process is that when everyone puts their minds together, you not only harness each individual’s intelligence, but you also benefit from the synchrony of the collection of minds helping you (a collective consciousness, if you will). Anyway, all I know is it has worked wonders in my life, and my mentors (who are more successful than I am) also have mastermind groups.

Fifth, do your research: learn to google and go out for breakfast. Start learning about the goal you’ve decided to reach and google it. Like Texas author Austin Kleon says in his new bestseller Steal Like an Artist, “Google everything.” If you personally know anyone who has achieved your goal, it is time to ask some questions. Occasionally, it is as simple as a quick question. For example, at the last workshop, I asked one of the participants how he got onto TED and got an answer. Other times, you may have to pay for a consultation. So, you may have to hire someone to tell you how to get from where you are to where you want to be. But, often, there may be someone in your current circle of friends, family, or acquaintances who will gladly go out to breakfast with you and will let you ask them questions. Most of us are afraid to ask people how they did the thing we want to do. I hate to be too blunt, but I’ll just say it: we’re completely UNCONSCIOUS about how often other people would like to help us—and this lack of awareness makes us timid. Think about it—have you ever felt good when someone has asked you for advise or guidance on something? How did it feel to help that person, simply by sharing some parts of your experience? There are people who would experience joy from sharing their journeys with you—who is this person for you? If someone just came to mind, send them an e-mail and invite them to breakfast this week. I can’t wait to hear what you learn!

Sixth, attend workshops & seminars that (1) you’ve researched and (2) would support you in reaching your goal. I run workshops, so it may sound like I’m just promoting Sunday’s workshop on Fearlessly Going For Your Dreams. But, I’m not just saying this to encourage you to attend our upcoming workshop (though I’d love it if you were there since it is going to be fantastic for you)—I am telling you this so you’ll consider incorporating it into you plan.

Why? Because I know the power of workshops to help you to gain momentum. I know this because I regularly attend workshops and seminars. For example, I just got back from an author round-table in Phoenix, which was not only uplifting but very clarifying. At the end of this month, my plan is to attend a woman’s workshop in Santa Barbara. Next year, I’m already committed to five others, some professional, some personal. I usually attend several a year, and I learn a ton.

Attending workshops and seminars will help you to learn from experts while making friends with others who share your interests. Unexpected happenings emerge—new friendships, new ideas, new things to read, new avenues to take, newfound confidence, newfound faith, etc. Some of you are shy and are therefore scared to attend workshops. (When I first started attending them, I was probably more shy, timid, and scared to attend than any of you. So, here me when I say that there are great rewards waiting for you on the other side of your fear!)

I can’t speak for every workshop but the ones that I run are structured, so if you’re shy, these are really perfect for you. You can just show up as you are and leave it to me to guide you through. In the ones I run, the only request is for YOU to bring YOU to the table with great honesty.

Seventh, if you don’t know the steps to getting there, work backwards. Then, start taking action on whatever becomes the first step. This is an oddly useful strategy that I learned at a workshop run by James Malinchack, who teaches people how to speak to college audiences. He said that it came from a Harvard study on goal attainment. What you do is to write down your goal, then write down the step you think you might have taken right before getting to the goal, then the step before that, then the step before that, and so on, in reverse order, until you get to where you are now. Sometimes, writing down these steps backwards will reveal steps that we didn’t know we knew. Once you’ve determined your steps, you have the skeleton of a plan. Start taking action on the first step by breaking it down into smaller steps. I like to apply Jack Canfield’s rule-of-5: you take 5 action steps a day toward your goal. This way, you don’t bite off more than you can chew, and you have a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day. Others have said to use a rule-of-3. The main thing is to take consistent, measurable action each day. As John D. Rockefeller was fond of saying, “A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden ful of weeds.”

Eighth, pay attention to feedback. When I was writing my first book, I signed up for 6 months of coaching from Jack Canfield’s company; their company uses a team coaching approach, so you basically have access to 5 coaches over 6 months. At one point, I got some really harsh feedback about my writing from someone who read my manuscript. It was so discouraging, that I wanted to give up. Ken Porter, one of my coaches at the time, told me that when a plane travels from one city to another, it is off-course 90% of the time. As long as the plane is heading in the right direction, and as long as it keeps flying and correcting its course, it will eventually reach its destination. I loved this analogy, course corrected (as I would many times after that), and kept on “flying,” so to speak. At our workshop on Sunday, I’m planning a demonstration that will help you to learn to love feedback and start adjusting to it.

Ninth, find yourself a great coach. Now, I know some people say to get an accountability partner. I know that works for lots of people. I’ve done that myself—her name was Theresa Bolen; she is a best-selling author and lives in Japan. She writes about overcoming test anxiety and stuff like that. I love Theresa and it was an enriching experience getting to know her and holding each other accountable for a year. But, given that I have such a busy lifestyle, I eventually had to prioritize between having an accountability partner and having a coach, and coaching won out. It won out because it was more effective for me. Theresa and I are still friends, but the coaching was what worked better for me personally.

Like I’ve said, everything I’m recommending to you here, I am actively doing myself. So, I’m not BS’ng you. Given that, let’s talk about coaching.

There is enormous value in getting coached, preferably by a coach whose mere presence allows you to feel (1) comfortable (2) affirmed and (3) challenged.

Because coaching is such an intimate experience, I would recommend that you get to know your coach before you enroll. Spend time researching your coach and talking with him or her. Read something the coach has written, interview the coach on the phone, attend a workshop the coach runs, or do something else so that you can decide if you’d resonate with that person and would like them to be on your team.

In my experience most people who are coached obtain enormous value from the relationship, starting with the emotional support they get from their coach. The emotional support is a necessary component to goal attainment, because emotions will arise whenever you stretch yourself. They just do. It is part of the process. So, when I coach clients, for example, we not only have scheduled contact, but we sometimes have contact between our scheduled contact (e-mail, text, or phone, etc.). In getting to know my clients well, I’m able to figure out where they might need support. As a result, I might recommend specific things for them to read or listen to, so as to help them to stay on track.

Coaching will help you to gain clarity, setting and reaching goals that are in alignment with your life’s purpose and values. For example, sometimes my clients need help clarifying their life’s purpose and passions, so that their goals can remain aligned with what is most important.

In addition, coaching will help you to stay on track with your plan, and to hold yourself accountable. When I am scheduled to have a session with Steve, I typically send him an update so that he knows what work I’ve done, exactly where I’ve made progress, and just where I’m struggling. He’s ready to go before our session even starts, and because I know I’m sending it, I make sure I have something to report!

Coaching will help you to tune into your strengths and face your fears. Often, we either ignore our strengths or don’t realize what our strengths are. A great coach is wonderful at finding your strengths , reminding you of them, or introducing them to you. This process helps you tune into them, own them, and step into your gifts. Contact me through info@myinnerguide.com to arrange a consultation, if your inner guidance is telling you that I am the one you should work with.

Tenth, share your success secrets with others. In doing this, you will (a) remind yourself that you’ve attained your goals, thereby celebrating your success (b) grow your success–as Steve says, what you pay attention to grows, (c) help others to become successful, (d) adopt an abundance rather than scarcity mindset. The scarcity mindset is outdated & I think it comes from the era of the Great Depression. It is this: Hoard your secrets, act competitively; there’s not enough to go around. This mindset leads to isolation, depression, and fear, often preventing you from asking for help because you believe that others won’t want to help you. The abundance mindset is the mindset of the new generation of achievers. It is much happier, being a mindset of sharing and cooperation, rather than hoarding and competition. It is simply this: There’s plenty to go around, so why not share? This mindset has more evidence behind it; it will help you to feel less alone, feel more empowered, and use your goodness to empower others.

At our workshop on Sunday, we will work on this and more. If you want to empower yourself more fully, go here now to sign up for our workshop on Sunday.

Warmly,

Pam Garcy, PhD

P.S. Sometimes, people ask me, “What’s the difference between coaching and therapy?” Since I do both of these in my practice, I know there’s value in both. To me, therapy is useful for learning to understand yourself better, and learning to manage your emotions and behaviors effectively. Sometimes, therapy is essential in helping you to overcome or manage a mental illness, and therapy includes an initial psychodiagnostic interview to determine if you are currently exhibiting the symptoms of a mental illness. At times, psychologists like me perform psychological assessments as well, since these help us to compare your level of symptoms to norms. If you have wounds that you need to heal, therapy can help you with the emotional healing process. In addition, if you are struggling with a mental illness, therapy can help you and your family to cope with it and problem solve. At its best, the final phase of therapy resembles a coaching relationship, since the emphasis moves beyond the space of coping and into the space of creating an amazing life.

Coaching is typically more intensely focused upon helping you reach a specific goal, or working on a project that is in alignment with something of great value to you. For example, I recently finished relationship coaching with a couple, who were able to achieve the goals of greater intimacy, trust, and joy.

Both therapy and coaching are very valuable in helping people to reach goals, and I recommend that if you are interested, you embark upon this journey of self-understanding and growth as soon as you can.

Dear Readers,

When you trust your inner guidance, you are turning inward for self-direction.  This is helpful in success, but you may still have doubt or question. Here is a question that has emerged as a theme within my Dallas CF Meetup group: 

How do I know if I have what it takes to be successful?

Let’s start by taking a look at the premise of your question.  How do you know if you have what it takes to be successful?  The phrase have what it takes implies that you have to be born under a certain star, possess a specific success gene, have received the blessing of a heavenly entity, have been informed by a psychic, or have been given a sign by the universe that you have that special something that others don’t have.  Therefore, because you have this special something, it is okay to proceed.   However, without that information, you just won’t know if you have what it takes, so you’d better wait until you have that confirmation.

If you really play with this idea and extend it out a little, you might be reminded of the lyrics of the Peter Pan song I won’t grow up:

If growing up means it would be

Beyond my dignity to climb a tree

I’ll never grow up

Never grow up

Never grow up

Not me!

Like Peter Pan, you might be afraid to grow up unless you have a guarantee that it won’t be beyond your dignity to climb the metaphorical tree—i.e., you won’t proceed without a guarantee of success.

Getting back to reality here…

So, to most of us grown-ups, having what it takes will be a combination of your genetics, your resources, of your mindset, your skill-set, and your commitment to succeeding—the last three being the most crucial of the factors.

Genetics are something that you don’t usually control directly, but you can control the expression of your genetics using principles of epigenetics (turning on the expression of genes through great nutrition for example) and plasticity (growing of your neuronal circuits).   Our Brain Balance program uses an understanding of epigenetics and plasticity to help kids with special needs to maximize their potential, for example.  Not everyone who is successful is born with what others consider to be the perfect combination of genes.

Your resources can refer to a variety of things, such as whether or not you’ve gotten specific training, your network of relationships, how deep your pockets are, etc.  Not everyone who becomes successful has great resources at first.  Sometimes, your resources expand as you create your success.

There are countless stories of people who didn’t initially seem to have what it takes based on genetics or resources (by the estimation of others), and who still surpassed what others said were “the odds” of them succeeding.  A great book which details tons of such stories is one of my favorites, The Success Principles: How to Get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be by Jack Canfield.  This book is available on audio, if you more of a listener than a reader.

Why did they succeed?  They were committed to success and they were willing to develop the proper mindset and skill-set to be successful.

A great example of this occurs in the sacred space of the coaching conversation.  Most of the clients who come to me for success coaching start with one of three challenges

1. Mindset (for example, they want to feel more confident, they doubt themselves,have a tendency to put themselves down, feel hopeless about something, are pessimistic about a life area, or are scared),

2. Skill-set (for example, they want help setting/reaching goals, they haven’t learned how to modulate their own energy, they want to break a bad habit, they are not very good at asking for what they want, they don’t know how to handle rejection, they have problems delivering feedback to others, or they don’t know how to do re-center themselves after a long day, etc.), and/or

3. Commitment (they haven’t totally jumped into the decision that they will do whatever it   takes to get to the goal, and they want some help getting there).

These clients want to grow in these 3 areas because they see how it directly impacts them on a daily basis.  This is why a good portion of the work I do with my coaching clients is about asking the guiding questions that allow them to challenge existing mindsets and gain skill-sets that lead to success, and this is one of the great things about coaching—it continually nurtures, grows, and challenges you to strengthen all three of these (commitment, mindset, and skill-set).  I know that the most successful coaching clients really enjoy coming to me to grow these, and often, this is one of the key benefits that I gain from undergoing my own coaching.

Bottom line, a lot of success is in your hands—are you willing to commit? Are you willing to learn?  Are you willing to do what it takes?  If your answers are yes, then you’re ready to get started!

Our workshop will support your success.  Have you RSVP’d yet?  Please do so now because space is limited.  Go here to RSVP now.

Your fearless leader,

Dr. Pam

Dear Readers,

When you trust your inner guidance, you are turning inward for self-direction.  This is helpful in success, but you may still have doubt or question. Here is a question that has emerged as a theme within my Dallas CF Meetup group: 

How do I know if I have what it takes to be successful?

Let’s start by taking a look at the premise of your question.  How do you know if you have what it takes to be successful?  The phrase have what it takes implies that you have to be born under a certain star, possess a specific success gene, have received the blessing of a heavenly entity, have been informed by a psychic, or have been given a sign by the universe that you have that special something that others don’t have.  Therefore, because you have this special something, it is okay to proceed.   However, without that information, you just won’t know if you have what it takes, so you’d better wait until you have that confirmation.

If you really play with this idea and extend it out a little, you might be reminded of the lyrics of the Peter Pan song I won’t grow up:

If growing up means it would be

Beyond my dignity to climb a tree

I’ll never grow up

Never grow up

Never grow up

Not me!

Like Peter Pan, you might be afraid to grow up unless you have a guarantee that it won’t be beyond your dignity to climb the metaphorical tree—i.e., you won’t proceed without a guarantee of success.

Getting back to reality here…

So, to most of us grown-ups, having what it takes will be a combination of your genetics, your resources, of your mindset, your skill-set, and your commitment to succeeding—the last three being the most crucial of the factors.

Genetics are something that you don’t usually control directly, but you can control the expression of your genetics using principles of epigenetics (turning on the expression of genes through great nutrition for example) and plasticity (growing of your neuronal circuits).   Our Brain Balance program uses an understanding of epigenetics and plasticity to help kids with special needs to maximize their potential, for example.  Not everyone who is successful is born with what others consider to be the perfect combination of genes.

Your resources can refer to a variety of things, such as whether or not you’ve gotten specific training, your network of relationships, how deep your pockets are, etc.  Not everyone who becomes successful has great resources at first.  Sometimes, your resources expand as you create your success.

There are countless stories of people who didn’t initially seem to have what it takes based on genetics or resources (by the estimation of others), and who still surpassed what others said were “the odds” of them succeeding.  A great book which details tons of such stories is one of my favorites, The Success Principles: How to Get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be by Jack Canfield.  This book is available on audio, if you more of a listener than a reader.

Why did they succeed?  They were committed to success and they were willing to develop the proper mindset and skill-set to be successful.

A great example of this occurs in the sacred space of the coaching conversation.  Most of the clients who come to me for success coaching start with one of three challenges

1. Mindset (for example, they want to feel more confident, they doubt themselves,have a tendency to put themselves down, feel hopeless about something, are pessimistic about a life area, or are scared),

2. Skill-set (for example, they want help setting/reaching goals, they haven’t learned how to modulate their own energy, they want to break a bad habit, they are not very good at asking for what they want, they don’t know how to handle rejection, they have problems delivering feedback to others, or they don’t know how to do re-center themselves after a long day, etc.), and/or

3. Commitment (they haven’t totally jumped into the decision that they will do whatever it   takes to get to the goal, and they want some help getting there).

These clients want to grow in these 3 areas because they see how it directly impacts them on a daily basis.  This is why a good portion of the work I do with my coaching clients is about asking the guiding questions that allow them to challenge existing mindsets and gain skill-sets that lead to success, and this is one of the great things about coaching—it continually nurtures, grows, and challenges you to strengthen all three of these (commitment, mindset, and skill-set).  I know that the most successful coaching clients really enjoy coming to me to grow these, and often, this is one of the key benefits that I gain from undergoing my own coaching.

Bottom line, a lot of success is in your hands—are you willing to commit? Are you willing to learn?  Are you willing to do what it takes?  If your answers are yes, then you’re ready to get started!

Our workshop will support your success.  Have you RSVP’d yet?  Please do so now because space is limited.  Go here to RSVP now.

Your fearless leader,

Dr. Pam