Bonus Lesson #4 - Recognising your wins
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Transcript of Bonus Lesson #4 Below:
Think about this program as if you were about to go abseiling down the highest cliff face in the world for the very first time.
When you look at how high up you are and how far down you have to go, it can be quite daunting, maybe a little bit scary (or a lot).
“Can I really do this?” you may be asking yourself.
This is where you may have been at the beginning of the program.
As you took that first step by joining this program, you were a little unsteady and really didn’t know where the path would lead you or where to put your feet next.
However, your instructor (that’s me) was there to help you take each step and give you the information you need in order to take those first scary steps.
You stepped off that cliff and you gave it a go.
You were shaky.
You may have even tripped or frozen a few times – “What do I do next?” Or “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do?”
But you kept going.
You kept learning more and more about the skill of abseiling and what it is you needed to do in order to get down the cliff face.
This is what you’ve been doing in last couple of weeks as we’ve been working on your mindset.
You’ve been learning about how the Four Stressful Thinking Lenses play out in your thoughts and how they trigger your reactions.
And you’ve been learning how to upgrade that thinking, expand your viewpoints on life to be in alignment with reality, and hopefully experienced how uplifting this can feel to do this, and how it then influences your choices and behaviour.
You may have even noticed how influential this learning has been on your child’s behaviours too.
Next week, as you continue down the cliff face towards the finish line, we’re going to continue to look at other ways you can expand your viewpoints and alleviate your emotional stress.
Before we begin to do this though, I just wanted to finish this week with some reflection, rather than more new information.
It’s important for you to recognise how far you have come already.
SO HERE’S TODAY’S EXERCISE
Grab a notebook and reflect over the last two weeks.
Take some time to recognise the wins you’ve had and list them so that you can see that, even if you did drop the ball, this was an integral part of learning what you needed to move closer to your goal of being a parent that’s feeling more peaceful.
Take notice of:
- When you were able to recognise one of the 4 stressful thinking lenses
- When you remembered an upgrade (even if it was after the event).
- When you felt differently or responded differently to a usually stressful event
- When you had a major insight you had about yours, your child’s or someone else’s behaviour
- When you had a good day (or a good hour) where you felt good.
- When you achieved a goal.
- When you achieved a better outcome than you would have before you started this program.
- When you acted in a solution focussed way
- When you were able to stop yourself from being in conflict with reality.
- When you broke a bad habit.
This is an important exercise, so don’t glaze over it.
We spend too much time as mums and dads looking at what we’re doing ‘wrong’ and not seeing all those successes we have.
Doing an exercise like this, can be a really good reference point that you can read back to yourself whenever you’re feeling hopeless, or helpless or when you feel that life never goes to plan.
You can look back and read these notes on how you have been successful at times over the last two weeks and it can help you to feel more confident that you can do this!
Today, it’s about giving yourself a pat on the back and saying, “Well done. I am making progress, and here is the proof.”
In tomorrow’s lesson, I’m going to teach you a technique for feeling good first, so you can parent from there.