In the current Covid crisis I’m not the only one with more time on my hands. For some the extra time has been welcome, for others the added time has been forced. For me it was inevitable as my husband and I were already in the middle of our relocation from London to Abu Dhabi due to an career opportunity for my husband. My plan was to get there, get the lay of the land and figure out my next step in my career once I got there. It’s a similar approach I took when I relocated from Stockholm to London and it had worked for me then.
Then lockdown happened, I managed to get to Abu Dhabi but once here there were few opportunities to engage with companies and professionals, or anyone at all for that matter. I was in lockdown, in a new country without anything in particular to occupy me. My husband spent his nose in his laptop working away with his new job so I could’t really bother him either. It suddenly hit me; I hadn’t had this much downtime since I traveled Australia when I was 20 – which was 13 years ago! It felt…weird.
As much as social media told me that it’s ok to just be in this crisis- which I completely stand behind – I’m happiest when I do.
So I purchased a NLP Master practitioner course and got stuck in developing my coaching skills. And I’m happy I did! With time to reflect and NLP tools in my hand, this is what I learnt:
My IDENTITY – With my extensive background in recruitment I’ve conducted countless of interviews and a common first question is: Who are you? 99% of the people would answer – I’m an/a Accountant, Software Engineer, HR generalist etc etc. Our instinct tends to be to reply to the question “What are you?”, which also is part of our identity but not what I was getting at.
I suspect that I’m not alone in struggling to answer the question “Who am I?”
When we reflect on WHAT we are it’s fairly easy: I’M A wife, daughter, sister, talent professional, idealist, dreamer.. (And now a Master NLP Practitioner) But when we need to reflect on WHO we are, it takes more brain capacity.
In NLP, WHO we are is just as important to WHAT we are – and when we know who we are and who we want to be, that’s when we can make progress.
My VALUES – How many takes time out to reflect on their values? I can’t hear you answers but I imagine that most of us don’t, I didn’t. But through this course I was encouraged to do so and it did enlighten me. I always knew that LOVE was something very important to me but I had no idea that PERSONAL HEALTH would score so high, or SELF-LOVE or FREEDOM. If we don’t know what is important to us, we don’t know to how to form a strategy to re-enforce those feelings/values in our life. I encourage you to reflect on this, write them down, compare them to each-other and rate them – you won’t regret it!
My BELIEFS – I think most of us have heard of limiting beliefs – a belief about ourselves, others or our environment that holds us back, many times engraved a long time ago without us even knowing we have them. Now, this was an eye opener. I consider myself a fairly confident person but the realisation that I’m holding myself back because of the belief I’m not good enough was like opening the oven to find ice-cream – shocking!
My VISION and PURPOSE – Now, I’ve always been extremely flexible and adaptable to the extent where my philosophy has been: “I take the road wherever it leads” . But in recent year(s), I’ve been more and more educated on the importance of goals. How do I know what to do to succeed if I don’t know what success is for me? FAIR QUESTION! It wasn’t until we got to the VISION and PURPOSE section in the course that I truly started to reflect on it. What purpose do I have that is bigger than myself? (Maybe I’ve been too self-absorbed in the past) Now, I reflected back to when I felt truly accomplished, it was never when I got the biggest commission or the prettiest things but when I felt that I had truly made a positive impact on someone else’s life. MY purpose: Use what I know and help people! What is YOURS?
If you did read this (THANK YOU!) and if you found it useful and interesting and would like to explore your IDENTITY/VALUES/BELIEFS/PURPOSE, schedule your exploratory call now!
It was my limiting belief that I wasn’t good enough to write an article – TAKE THAT limiting belief!
PS. If you want to hear more about becoming a Master NLP Practitioner, get in touvh and I will support you.