This is the last episode in a three-part series that I have been doing on thought work and money.
These episodes are all about how coaching and thought work can help you create new results in your life. I'm sharing the main tools that I use in coaching.
Now, there are hundreds of tools that I use when I'm working with my clients. But the main tools in thought work are The Model, thought downloads and learning how to change your thoughts to create new results in your life.
This is the focus today. I'm going to talk to you about how to actually use thoughts to make change in your life. If you're serious about doing this work for yourself and you want to make changes in your life, I would strongly suggest getting a coach, you can reach out to me for that or reach out to any coach that resonates with you to work with.
I'm giving you an overview during these three episodes so you can develop a basic understanding about what on earth coaching is and why do I always bang on about it in the podcast? This is a foundation for you and a basic overview so you can understand future episodes when I talk about these concepts.
So, how do you make change, lasting change, real change in your life using thought work? That is the million-dollar question, and I'm going to share that with you today. But I will just start by saying, if this is the first episode you have listened to, I recommend you go back and listen to part one and part two first.
Part One is all about doing a thought download and creating awareness around your thoughts.
Part Two is where I explain The Model. I go through and I talk all about what circumstances, thoughts, feelings, actions and results are in the context of The Model and how they all connect to each other.
I would listen to Part One & Two first and that will help you understand this episode more clearly.
Now, like I said last week, the reason why I think that affirmations don't work is that for someone to think a thought, and for it to actually have an effect in your life, you have to believe it. Right?
For example, you can say ‘I'm really confident’ ‘I'm really confident’, ‘I'm really confident’, ‘I'm really confident’ until you're blue in the face. But if actually underneath that, what you really think is ‘I'm not good enough’. You are not going to create the result of being confident in your life, because you don't believe it.
It's the same with money. You might be reading the books or thinking about manifestation and thinking, yes, the universe gives me money but I don't believe manifesting works by just saying an affirmation and creating that in your life. I think that there are a few other steps involved.
The good news is, is that I know what those steps are, and I can teach them to you. I'm going to give you an overview of them today. But if you really want to use them effectively in your life, I would love for you to work with me because I can really help you make change.
Alright, so last week, I went over the example of the model that I used to be running in my life- that was the thought that ‘I don't have enough’. The circumstance in my life was my bank account and money, the amount of money that I had. The thought I had about that was ‘I don't have enough’. When I used to think ‘I don't have enough’, I would feel insecure. I would take a lot of inaction, where I would worry, I would spend a lot of time thinking about money. I would spin about money in my head, I had lots of thoughts going around and around about how I didn't have enough. I felt insecure and I couldn't see all the things that I did have because I was so focussed on what I didn't have. I was scrambling to try to create financial security for myself, so I wouldn't feel this feeling of insecurity and the result was I closed the door to having enough and I amplified that feeling of insecurity and feeling like I didn't have enough because that was the place that I was operating from.
Now when you think thoughts like that, it's not good or bad. I’m not making any judgments here but even when I first realised I was thinking like this; I wasn't able to just jump from ‘I don't have enough’ to ‘I have enough money’ because I didn't believe it.
At that time, the thought ‘I have enough money’ wasn't available to me because it wasn't believable. I could work on believing that but there were some steps I needed to take before that.
When you want to change a belief, the first thing to do is just create awareness around that and realise that it's just a thought that you are choosing to think, it's not an actual fact.
The next step is to pick a thought to think on purpose that is believable. For me that was ‘I'm learning how to be good with money’. These are what we call bridge thoughts or ladder thoughts, they are thoughts that you can actually believe, and they get you to where you want to go.
When I felt insecure about the thought ‘I don't have enough money’, that wasn't helping me get the result that I wanted. Now, it's not that I just suddenly never thought that thought again. But I created new thoughts that I could believe that created feelings that helped me take the action that I needed to get the results I wanted.
The result that I wanted in my life was to feel secure about money. I wanted to feel security. That was a feeling that I wanted to feel but the problem was, I thought it was the circumstance, (the amount of money) that caused that feeling of security or insecurity. But it wasn’t the circumstance, it was my thought about it. When you realise this, and really get it, you're in an incredibly powerful position because you can actually choose to think thoughts that make you feel a particular way.
You can generate feelings on demand, then you can take the action that those feelings help you take and then you get the results that you want in your life.
I worked on different thoughts, instead of thinking ‘I don't have enough’, I started focusing on and choosing to think ‘I know exactly how to look after myself’. When I think that thought, ‘I know exactly how to look after myself’ I feel secure.
When I feel secure, I plan what I'm doing with my money. I check my money regularly and actively, not out of fear but just out of taking care of it. I'm looking after my money. I actively do things to create more, such as investing it. The result of that is that I look after myself financially and I feel secure.
Now, in the beginning that thought ‘I don't have enough’ still came up a lot for me and that was okay. But instead of being focused on ‘I don't have enough’ I was able to create the space and air-time for this new thought ‘I know exactly how to look after myself’.
I kept practicing that thought- ‘I know exactly how to look after myself’, because that was something I could really believe. I could also believe that thought in lots of other areas of my life, not just about money. I was able to give my brain a lot of evidence for how- yes, of course, ‘I know exactly how to look after myself’, on so many levels, not just financially. Well, then my brain started looking for all the evidence for how I was able to look after myself, and that I knew exactly how to look after myself. And the more that I thought that thought the more I felt secure, and the more I created that feeling of security.
The piece that I really want you to take away from this is that it wasn't the amount of money that I had that created the feeling of security. It was my thoughts about it. And if you take anything from these three episodes it is that our thoughts create the results that we get in our life.
I'll give you another example. When you have a thought, like ‘I'm bad with money’, you might not be able to go from ‘I'm bad with money’ to ‘I'm great with money’. But there are many thoughts in between that you can believe and that’s what you want to focus deliberately.
Let’s say when you think that thought ‘I'm bad with money’, you feel shame. And when you feel shame about money, you completely hide from money, you put it under the covers and pretend that it doesn't exist. You ignore your bills, you don't pay your credit card payments, or you get yourself into lots of credit card debt because you don't pay any attention to it because you feel ashamed and the funny thing is you don't want to feel like that, so you go and buy that new top that you just saw online because when you buy new tops, you get that dopamine hit and feel good. You keep fulfilling this whole prophecy that ‘I'm bad with money’, right? The result is that you are bad with money.
When you want to get to a place where you feel like you're good with money but you don't believe it yet; you can use bridging thoughts in between that you do believe. For example, ‘I'm learning about money’, or ‘I have a thought that I'm bad with money and that's okay’. When you think a different thought like that you might feel curious or you might feel a willingness to explore. That's a different feeling from shame and when you feel different feelings, you do things differently. So maybe you focus on the thought, ‘I have a thought, I'm bad with money, and that's okay’ and the feeling you feel is curious.
Then, because you're in that space of curiosity, perhaps you become open at looking at how those thoughts affect you in your life. You notice that when you feel shame you go and buy things.
You create the space to see what you are doing in your life unintentionally.
The bottom line with all of this is our thoughts create our reality; our thoughts create what we experience in the world. I want to give you one more example because I think so many of you will be able to relate to these. So, something that was coming up for me a lot was my daughter not listening to me. I tell her to do something and she doesn't listen to me. And usually this happens around, dinner, bath, bed time, I'm sure you can relate. Often, I found myself getting angry with her. I felt out of control because she would not do things and then I would feel angry.
My daughter not listening to me is a neutral circumstance It's not good. It's not bad. It just is. But the way that I was choosing to think about that was ‘she's disrespecting me’. When I thought that thought I felt angry. And when I feel angry, I don't behave very well. I do things like I yell at my daughter. I get worked up and I get frustrated. The result of that is that I end up being disrespectful to my daughter.
Isn't that interesting? When I got awareness around this I started deliberately working on how I wanted to feel about my daughter. Now listen, my daughter is five years old. Of course, she's not going to listen to me. That's what five year olds do, right? But instead of choosing to think ‘she's disrespecting me’, the thought that worked for me was ‘I am a mature adult’. When I think that thought deliberately, I feel mature and when I feel mature, I act in a mature way. I speak calmly, I choose how I want to respond to her. I give her really clear consequences for her behaviour. My daughter is still ignoring me and still not doing what I say but the result is, that I get to behave in a way that creates a good result for me. I get to show up as a parent who's calm and mature. I don't have to feel angry or worked up or out of control, I get to choose the result that I want in that situation. She doesn't always do what I tell her to do, but all the drama is dropped. Now, there's still plenty of nights when that thought pops into my head ‘she's disrespecting me’ but now I also have the thought, ‘I'm a mature adult’, and I choose to give that thought more air-time. This is how you make change.
You can use these tools with anything in your life- with money, with how your children treat you, with weight loss, with how you show up at work, it works for all of it.
Whatever you feel is a problem in your life that you want to change, you can use these tools to help you create new results. And also to create the things that you want like a new career or whatever it is that you want to go for in your life, you can use these tools deliberately to create that for yourself.
Alright, I think I've talked enough about this. If you are interested in learning more about this and you would like to work with me on your thoughts. You can reach out to me anywhere, you're following me. You can schedule a complimentary consultation with me. I work with you for 45 minutes to an hour. It’s your chance to go over with me everything that you want to work on, talk to me about what you want to change. I give you the opportunity to experience a little bit of coaching, and then I let you know if we're a good fit.
I would love to see you creating what you want in your life. I have been doing this work for a few years now and I have completely changed my life. I'm living in a place of intentional abundance, creating what I really want. And I would love to work with you to be able to help you do the same.