I recently had a client tell me I was repeating myself. It’s actually quite
difficult remembering exactly what I say to each and every client as I usually
have about 50 ‘live’ clients at any one point in time and speak to 15 or so per
week..
After the first session or so I don’t like taking too many notes because it’s impossible for me to be note taking and be fully engaged in the conversation.
Therefore, I realize I may repeat a story, metaphor of heaven forbid one of my terrible jokes from time to time. In fact I’m sure I do this on a semi-regular basis, but most people are too polite to point it out to me.
This conversation was somewhat different though because I knew perfectly well I was repeating myself.
I was talking about getting back to the basics of controlling thoughts. I’d just said to the client something along those lines:
“The language you use is simply a manifestation of your thoughts you’re having, and if the language isn’t changing then neither are the thoughts”
Hearing the same thing over and over again can be frustrating I realize that. However, as the saying goes, repetition is the mother of skill. We are a product of what we have done over and over again through our lives. What we do today is practice for what we do tomorrow, so we either change today or we don’t change at all.
Imagine you’re learning to ski. You’re with a group of beginners high in the Rockies and the instrictor is attempting to teach you the basics. All of a sudden you spot an enticingly steep mogul field over to your left. You haven’t paid all that money to wuss about on the kids stuff and in your blissful incompetent ignorance you start to snowplow your way over toward it. You know, just to ‘give it a go’
There is a scream from your instructor to stop as she hastens toward you. You both arrive at the edge simultaneously and as you look down you realize it hadn’t been such a good idea after all. She advises you that it will be at least a week or so before you are capable of taking on the tougher slopes.
The following day you’re getting a little better and feeling a lot more confident Once again you spot another slope with a sign at the top :
Death Run - Expert Skiers With Lots Of Insurance Coverage Only!
“Woo-hoo baby this is more like it."
Once again you snow plough your way to the top of the run. The instructor sees you do this and stands watching with amusement as you gingerly approach the edge. You teeter at the top for a while summoning up your courage and then set off down the vertical sheet of ice with all the elegance and control of Bambi after half a dozen Margarita’s.
You wake up in the local hospital with both legs in plaster and aching all over. Your instructor has stopped by to say hello and wish you a speedy recovery. After a brief conversation it seems she knew damn well you couldn’t cope with that slope and an accident was imminent. You start to get agitated and ask why the hell she didn’t tell you.
“I told you yesterday you weren’t ready for the tough runs” she replied with a big smile on her face, “I didn’t think I needed to say it again”
I think it’s fair to say the instructor was negligent and didn’t demonstrate much duty of care toward you. It doesn’t matter how big a moron you have been and how much testosterone you had coursing through your veins, she should still have warned you and tried to prevent you from risking your life.
So I explained to the client the reason for me repeating myself was because this was the basics, and we need to get the basics right first if we are to move on. We were trying to unpick thirty or so years of negative self-talk and you cannot change that overnight.
It has been built up my repetition and it will be knocked down with repetition.
She came back with, “There really isn’t that much to all this is there?”
And you know what? She was right, because there isn’t. Self development and improvement isn’t complicated at all.
If you understand your values and are prepared to live in alignment with them. If you have a supporting belief system. And if you are conscious of the language you use (especially internally), everything else is easy.
If that is, you’re prepared to put the work in and that can be the repetitive part. It isn’t enough knowing what to do, you have to do it. If your car is making a strange noise from under the hood and you’re not sure what it is, what would you do?
I suspect you wouldn’t take it to a garage and get them to diagnose the problem, but not mend it. Knowing the noise is a shock absorber failing isn’t much use to you unless you actually change it.
The same goes for self-development. It isn’t enough to know your language is not supporting you and that’s why you feel crap. You want to be able to change it and make changes for the better. Otherwise you may as well stay in blissful ignorance.
http://bizymoms.com/business/Article/Personal-Development-Is-Easy/896
After the first session or so I don’t like taking too many notes because it’s impossible for me to be note taking and be fully engaged in the conversation.
Therefore, I realize I may repeat a story, metaphor of heaven forbid one of my terrible jokes from time to time. In fact I’m sure I do this on a semi-regular basis, but most people are too polite to point it out to me.
This conversation was somewhat different though because I knew perfectly well I was repeating myself.
I was talking about getting back to the basics of controlling thoughts. I’d just said to the client something along those lines:
“The language you use is simply a manifestation of your thoughts you’re having, and if the language isn’t changing then neither are the thoughts”
Hearing the same thing over and over again can be frustrating I realize that. However, as the saying goes, repetition is the mother of skill. We are a product of what we have done over and over again through our lives. What we do today is practice for what we do tomorrow, so we either change today or we don’t change at all.
Imagine you’re learning to ski. You’re with a group of beginners high in the Rockies and the instrictor is attempting to teach you the basics. All of a sudden you spot an enticingly steep mogul field over to your left. You haven’t paid all that money to wuss about on the kids stuff and in your blissful incompetent ignorance you start to snowplow your way over toward it. You know, just to ‘give it a go’
There is a scream from your instructor to stop as she hastens toward you. You both arrive at the edge simultaneously and as you look down you realize it hadn’t been such a good idea after all. She advises you that it will be at least a week or so before you are capable of taking on the tougher slopes.
The following day you’re getting a little better and feeling a lot more confident Once again you spot another slope with a sign at the top :
Death Run - Expert Skiers With Lots Of Insurance Coverage Only!
“Woo-hoo baby this is more like it."
Once again you snow plough your way to the top of the run. The instructor sees you do this and stands watching with amusement as you gingerly approach the edge. You teeter at the top for a while summoning up your courage and then set off down the vertical sheet of ice with all the elegance and control of Bambi after half a dozen Margarita’s.
You wake up in the local hospital with both legs in plaster and aching all over. Your instructor has stopped by to say hello and wish you a speedy recovery. After a brief conversation it seems she knew damn well you couldn’t cope with that slope and an accident was imminent. You start to get agitated and ask why the hell she didn’t tell you.
“I told you yesterday you weren’t ready for the tough runs” she replied with a big smile on her face, “I didn’t think I needed to say it again”
I think it’s fair to say the instructor was negligent and didn’t demonstrate much duty of care toward you. It doesn’t matter how big a moron you have been and how much testosterone you had coursing through your veins, she should still have warned you and tried to prevent you from risking your life.
So I explained to the client the reason for me repeating myself was because this was the basics, and we need to get the basics right first if we are to move on. We were trying to unpick thirty or so years of negative self-talk and you cannot change that overnight.
It has been built up my repetition and it will be knocked down with repetition.
She came back with, “There really isn’t that much to all this is there?”
And you know what? She was right, because there isn’t. Self development and improvement isn’t complicated at all.
If you understand your values and are prepared to live in alignment with them. If you have a supporting belief system. And if you are conscious of the language you use (especially internally), everything else is easy.
If that is, you’re prepared to put the work in and that can be the repetitive part. It isn’t enough knowing what to do, you have to do it. If your car is making a strange noise from under the hood and you’re not sure what it is, what would you do?
I suspect you wouldn’t take it to a garage and get them to diagnose the problem, but not mend it. Knowing the noise is a shock absorber failing isn’t much use to you unless you actually change it.
The same goes for self-development. It isn’t enough to know your language is not supporting you and that’s why you feel crap. You want to be able to change it and make changes for the better. Otherwise you may as well stay in blissful ignorance.
http://bizymoms.com/business/Article/Personal-Development-Is-Easy/896
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