What if …

Did you ever wonder what if?  What would your life be like today if you’d taken a different path?  Who would you be with?  What would you be doing?  Where would you be working?  Who would you be?

Mahatma Gandhi once said “The future depends on what we do in the present.”  And while that’s true, you’re present is also dependent on what you’ve done in the past.  The decisions you made back then, small and large, shaped who you are today.

So what if you could change your past to change who you are today to create the future you really want tomorrow?  Would you do it?

It really depends on whether or not you like who you are, doesn’t it?   After all, if you’re happy with you, why change?  If you’re unhappy, then wouldn’t you do anything within reason to get what you want?

You may ask, what if getting what I want means losing something dear to me?  But, if that happens, doesn’t it mean you’re not getting what you want?  After all, why can’t you have it all?

If that last question brought up all kinds of “stuff” for you, you need to pay attention.  That “stuff” is your baggage.  It’s the limiting beliefs and decisions that are holding you back and preventing you from getting what you want.

In fact, anytime you hear that little voice in your head questioning what you’re doing, giving you “can’t” and “won’t”, take note.  Like Napolean Hill once said, “What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”  The can’t and won’t that you hear, see or feel is actually doubt and when you doubt you don’t believe.

So, how do you get rid of the doubt?  How do you change those decisions of the past so you can live the life you desire?  Start by choosing today to have the life you desire.  Know that you can have it all.  You can live a life of harmony and balance.

If you need help, call someone.  At The New You Academy, we have Master Practitioners on staff who are skilled at helping people just like you re-evaluate the decisions of their past to change today so they can live the future they desire.

If you’re one of those people who wants to learn more, feel free to contact us to talk to a practitioner today.

I’m freakin’ out right now!

During one of the most poinient and memorable acceptance speeches of the 2012 Academy Awards ceremony, Octavia Spencer, winner of Best Supporting Actress, said “I’m freakin’ out right now!”  Can you relate?  Have you ever felt that feeling?  That rush of excitement coupled with the wave of fear?

Now contrast that with the speech given by Meryl Streep, winner of the Best Actress award the same night.  She was poised, cool and confident.  She was relaxed.  Of course, this was her third Oscar ….

Do you think it was Meryl Streep’s experience that allowed her to be so relaxed?  Maybe it was that she’s an extrovert and is very comfortable being in front of thousands. Wouldn’t you have to be an extrovert being an actor?

Most likely the reason that Octavia was so nervous and Meryl was so relaxed is expectation.  Meryl likely expected that she was going to be at the podium and so she planned for it, she practiced.  Meryl expected a fantastic outcome as a result of her acceptance speech.  Octavia didn’t.

Octavia also didn’t not expect it.  She just didn’t plan.  It’s the way most of us operate.

When faced with the opportunity to get up in front of a crowd and say a few words, most of us are scared to death.  In fact, most people would rather die than speak in public.   You would think that an actor doesn’t have this problem, yet some do.

If you’re one of those people, there are several things you can do.  One of them is to imagine sitting down, having successfully said exactly what you wanted to say.  Just imagine what it would be like for you if everything went perfectly and it was all in past, all behind you.

You might also use Time Line Therapy® to release any fear and anxiety you hold.  By releasing fear and anxiety, events such as public speaking become opportunities for greatness instead of failure.

To find out how Time Line Therapy® can help you get over fear and anxiety, contact The New You Academy today.

I didn’t know what to say …

Have you ever been in situation where you didn’t know what to say?  Nothing came to mind?  You were stumped?  Maybe later a whole variety of things came up, but at the moment … nothing!

Or maybe you weren’t at a loss.  Lot’s of things came up, none of them the right thing.  And where did that leave you?

Neuro-Linguistic Programming, being about using language, offers several techniques that will help you in knowing what to say and in understanding how people think.  One of the techniques taught at the Master Practitioner level, called “Slight of Mouth”, is about questions to ask yourself that will allow you to generate responses to any kind of situation.

For example, let’s say you’re in a conversation with someone and you make an innocent statement from the goodness of your heart.  The response you get is something like “That’s very condescending!”  What do you say to that?

You might ask yourself, “What is another outcome you could shift to?”  Your intent was caring, compassion.  So, you might say something like “If you interpret caring and compassion as condescension, expect more of it.”

Whoa!  What happens?  By making a statement like that, you are causing the recipient to re-evaluate what they’ve said.  It forces them to think about their statement and your response to it.  In fact, they might re-evaluate the entire conversation.  It is likely that they’ll see that your intention was caring and compassion, not anything else.

Slight of Mouth techniques can be used in sales, customer service and a variety of other industries.  It also helps you to understand the possible motives behind statements, which leads to better conversations and better relationships.

To understand more about Slight of Mouth and other linguistic techniques, contact a Master Practitioner today to register for the next NLP Master Practitioner Certification course.

It all started when …

Do you remember when things started going wrong? You know, it was when you know who did that unspeakable thing to you?

It was a pretty big event, wasn’t it? And that was the first time anything like that had every happened before, right?

The truth is that, good or bad, the big event is a culmination of the choices you’ve had and the decisions you’ve made. The question is can you accept responsibility for having created that event?

It may seem that someone else is to blame and yet that’s not the case. The truth is that no one is to blame. Responsibility isn’t about blame. It’s about taking charge of your life.

You see, if you accept responsibility for what happens in your life, you get to uncreate those things that no longer serve you. If you don’t, you will continue to be a victim.

Using Time Line Therapy®, you can reevaluate the decisions of your past to create new ones that now serve you. As a result, that big event doesn’t need to rule you. Instead you get to consciously decide what you want and where you want to go.

After all, isn’t that what you want? Conscious control over your life?

To reevaluate the decisions of your life, talk to a Master Practitioner of Time Line Therapy® today.

Does it have to be so hard?

Does it seem to you like change is hard?  Stepping out of your comfort zone, away from what you know to be “safe” sometimes seems difficult, even challenging.

Sometimes change is thrust upon us, other times we choose it.  In either case, making the change and growing can be hard.  The question is why?  Why does it have to be so hard?

For some people, if it’s not difficult or challenging, if it doesn’t push you, then there’s no value in it.  As a result, they make things harder than they need to be.

Of course, when you’re in your comfort zone, where you feel safe, where you know your problems, there are no obstacles, no challenges.  It’s the very act of stepping outside of the comfort zone that creates obstacles, challenges.

When things get tough, you have several options.  The most obvious is that you can stop, try to step back inside your comfort zone and forget that you even tried to step outside of it.  This is what most people do.

The challenge is that you can’t.  Once you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone, your comfort zone expands.  You can never unlearn what you’ve learned, never unknow what you know.  So, you might as well look for other ways to get around, over, under or through the obstacle.

Of course, when you’re in the problem, trying to find your way past what’s holding you back, it’s not easy to see any alternatives.  It’s much easier for someone who’s not in the problem to help you find a way out.

That’s why it’s often helpful to talk to someone about your problems.  Not someone who will commiserate with you, but someone who will help you find meaningful solutions to overcome the challenges that hold you back.  Usually, that doesn’t include friends and family because they will tend to empathize with you or not offer any meaningful advice because they, like you, are too close to the problem.

That’s where a Master Practitioner can be of service.  This is someone who can see past the obstacles, help you rise above your problems to see them from a new light and can give you the tools to overcome the challenges that hold you back.

If you’re facing a challenge that’s stopping you from getting what you truly desire, talk to a Master Practitioner today.

What did you say?

Ever been asked a question that seemed to have no bearing on the conversation you’re having or really anything at all?  What does it mean?

When working with a therapist, coach or counselor, you may get asked to questions that make no sense.  Those questions actually are indicative of how you think and what’s going on in your head.   Sometimes the question seems off the wall, but it’s actually not.

Generally something you said triggered a thought in your therapist, coach or counselor’s mind.  To verify that thought, your coach or counselor might ask a question that seems strange.

For example, suppose you say that you really aren’t sure what to do about something.  Your coach might ask, “When you come into a situation do you usually act quickly after sizing it up, or do you do a complete study of all the consequences and then act?”

Your answer indicates whether you are active, reflective or both.  If you are active, it means that you make decisions quickly and jump into things with little information.  If you’re reflective, it means that you like to know as much as possible before you make a decision.  If you’re both, it means that you’ll make a decision quickly and like to follow up with facts and data to ensure you’ve made the best decision.

When your answer to the question that you’ve been asked doesn’t match what’s expected, then your coaching session might take a different turn.  It could be indicative of the root cause of the problem.

The challenge is knowing what questions to ask.  Fortunately, a Master Practitioner does know the right questions to ask at the right time.

To learn more about how asking the right questions can benefit you, talk to a Master Practitioner today.

Do you love me?

Ever question whether or not someone loves you? Maybe you feel like you and your significant other aren’t speaking the same language? Maybe that’s true for someone else in your life.

From a Neuro-Linguistic Programming standpoint, there are only a couple of reasons why relationships fail; unsatisfied love strategies, negative anchors and the inability to communicate.

We use strategies for everything. We have a strategy for knowing that we’re loved, a strategy for making a purchase, even a strategy for brushing our teeth. Our strategies, or steps, help insure that everything is as it should be for us.

When it comes to romantic relationships, there are basically three ways that we communicate love; visually by taken someone places or buying them things, auditorially by telling them we love them or kinesthetically by touching them in that special way. When we first start our relationship, we do it all. Over time we revert back to our preferred mode of expressing love … which is not necessarily the same as our partner. Fortunately, if you always “date” your partner like you did when you first met, you’ll never have this problem.

Anchors, or more accurately emotional anchors, are created all the time when you are in a peak emotional state and receive some stimulus. For example, most people have some reaction when looking at their countries flag or listening to certain songs.

A negative anchor is one that is counterproductive. For example, if you hate your job and are angry when you come home and then you see your lovers face, you may transfer that anger to them so that just seeing their face makes you angry.

You can collapse a negative anchor by triggering a powerful positive anchor, like your favorite song, at the same time as the negative anchor. This has the effect of diluting the negative anchor like cream does to coffee. The more powerful the positive anchor, the better the result.

When it comes to communicating with others, it’s important to realize that we all have our own individual language. Part of our language is the meaning of words and another part is whether we are thinking and speaking from an auditory, kinesthetic, or visual mode. If you are working auditorially and the person you are trying to communicate with is visual, you may find that you don’t understand each other even though you may be saying the same things.

To help with communication mismatches, listen to the words that are being used and echo similar words back. A person who’s in visual mode will use words like see, look, picture, and imagine. Auditory people will use words like hear, click, and sound. Kinesthetic or feeling people will use words like feel, concrete, thick or heavy.

To learn more about how to improve communication, contact us to register to become an NLP Practitioner.

Did you know ….

Did you know that approximately 19 million American adults ages 18 to 54, or about 13.3% of the people in this age group, in any given year, have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder?

• Anxiety disorders are frequently diagnosed with other disorders such as depression and bi-polar disorders, eating disorders, or substance abuse.
• Many people are said to suffer from more than one anxiety disorder.
• Approximately twice as many women as men have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.
• Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health problem in the United States today.

What does all this mean? It means that there are a number of people in the world who have or believe they have some variety of anxiety disorder.  Many of these people think they don’t have a choice.  Do you?

If you go to the doctor with a mental health issue such as anxiety, you are likely to end up with a prescription medication. You could also treat the issue naturopathically through holistic medicines.  There are many who choose to ignore the issue hoping it will go away.

For some the anxiety disorder is chemical in nature, the result of some other medication or improper nutrition. Good nutrition will go a long way to helping resolving these types of anxiety issues.  There are a number of texts on the subject.

Using Time Line Therapy®, you can effectively release anxiety, depression, and resolve eating disorders and substance abuse. That’s because Time Line Therapy® gives you choices.

By going back to the decisions made in the past and re-evaluating them, you get more choices.  In fact, you get the ability to train your unconscious mind to handle anxiety, to overcome depression, and to be free of anxiety disorders.

If you’d like to find out more about how a Time Line Therapy® Master Practitioner can help you or a loved one with Anxiety Disorders, feel free to contact The New You Academy at (888) 505-1399 for more information.

What Now?

Ever felt like everything that could go wrong is going wrong? Like you can’t handle even one more thing and yet you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop?

And what happens when that other shoe drops? Often, that feeling of dread, the feeling that everything is going wrong is dependent on two things; your focus and your ability to handled overwhelm.

As a general rule, overwhelm is relatively simple to resolve. Simply, ask yourself what specifically you’re overwhelmed about. Make a list. Generally, you’ll find that what seems to be a huge mountain is actually a small mole hill.

Focus on the other hand is another issue. What you tend to see in the world is what you’re focusing on. If everything appears to be going wrong, take a look at what you’re focusing on. Is everything really as bad as it seems? Can you find at least one good thing in the situation?

Changing your focus and you change your outlook. Of course it’s not always an easy task. Fortunately Time Line Therapy® can help you get past the negativity in your life that causes your outlook to be something other than you want.

To find out more about how Time Line Therapy® can help you overcome the negatives in your life, contact The New You Academy

What are you focusing on?

There you are, on a date, sitting next to someone who could be the one. Everything about that person is right, except one or maybe two things. Rather than focusing on all the good, you focus on the one or two things that bother you.

On the other hand, you could be focusing on all the positive qualities about someone or something while ignoring the red flags, the issues that might indicate a problem down the line.

The important thing is to realize what your focusing on and to expand your focus to encompass all aspects of the situation. By being objective, by expanding your focus, you gain the ability to choose what is in your best interest, what serves you.

If you’re not where you want to be in life, if you’re not with who you want to be with, take a look at what you are focusing on. Because your focus determines what you get and what you have.

Your focus is determined in part by the choices you had and the decisions you made along the way. Those decisions color your focus and may blind you to other possibilities. Fortunately, you can do something about it.

Simply re-evaluate your choices and make new decisions; ones that support you. If you need help, consider a session with a Master Practitioner of Time Line Therapy®.

To find out more, contact The New You Academy today.