Are You Reacting or Responding?

Reacting and responding might appear to be synonymous, but that’s not the case. Reacting suggests a lack of thought and consideration. It’s emotional and impulsive. Responding is addressing the situation thoughtfully with consideration. It’s intelligent and keeps the consequences in mind.

How many challenges have you created in your life by reacting instead of responding? At the extreme, our prisons are full of people that reacted without considering the long-term outcome. Relationships are especially sensitive to this same phenomenon. Have you ever said something in the heat of the moment that you later wished you could take back?

Imagine how responding effectively could change your life for the better!

Follow these strategies to ensure that you’re responding:

1. Learn to notice your emotions. Overreaction can be avoided by simply noticing that you’re emotional. If you notice the initial circumstances that lead to a poor response, it can be quite easy to nip it in the bud before an even more challenging situation is created.

• Emotions are much easier to control earlier in the escalation process.

2. Step away. It’s not enough to say to yourself, “I’m angry.” It’s far more effective to think, “I’m angry. I should watch my words until I’ve had time to process and calm down.”
   

• In nearly all situations, there’s plenty of time to think before responding. Time is a resource. Use it to your advantage.

3. If you find yourself reacting, breathe. The simple act of focusing on your breath can quickly diffuse your growing emotions. Despite what you might believe, you can only think about one thing at a time. If you’re truly focused on your breath, you have to calm down. It takes practice to have the necessary focus in challenging situations, but it can be done.
4. Recognize the gift of being a human being. Arguably, most animals are simply reaction machines. They don’t have the capability to pause and consider the best course of action. A dog sees a rabbit run and he chases it. You have the option of considering all the possibilities. Reacting quickly rarely results in the best outcome. 

• Our brains are our greatest tool and weapon. Think first.
• When you react, it’s reflexive. When you respond, you’re making a conscious choice.

5. Use emotion to your advantage. Being emotional about an issue is simply a measure of how meaningful it is to you. Give the emotional issues in your life your full attention. However, it’s questionable that strong negative emotions have value beyond this function. Negative emotions exist to inform you that something is potentially wrong.

• It’s then up to you to objectively examine the situation and make a thoughtful decision.

6. List your options. Sitting down and making a list is almost magical. When you’re focused on finding all the possible solutions, you’re likely to discover there are some good choices available to you. You’re unlikely to find the best solution without making an effort to find it.
7. Consider the consequences. It’s human nature to think short-term. The frequency of bursting waistlines and low account balances are evidence of this fact. Think further down the road. 

• Saying something unkind might feel good in the moment, but consider having to deal with the aftermath. Quitting your job might relieve your discomfort today, but what about next month?

Reacting too quickly is rarely the best option. Responding appropriately is a key factor in creating a successful and enjoyable life. If you’re reacting, consider making the effort to respond to life’s challenges in a more intelligent and thoughtful manner. You’ll be glad you did!

Coaching Success: Getting Started

When we are making the pitch for our coaching services, we are in essence really selling ourselves. Being able to “walk the talk” is key in gaining credibility with potential clients. In this http://ift.tt/2eedzuP blog post, Amanda Alexander, one of the UK’s top Life Coaches, sheds light on this and other strategies for getting your coaching business up and running on a firm foundation.

Three Essential Things You Need to Do Before Setting Up Your Coaching Practice

All too often, new coaches dive into setting up a new practice head first but soon find themselves sinking rather than swimming! Here are three essential things that you need to do before setting up your coaching practice. This is good old-fashioned common sense, but if you do these three things, you’ll set yourself up with strong foundations for a profitable and sustainable coaching practice.

1. Be Your Own Coach

I trained with CoachU, and a big part of their curriculum is “Personal Foundation.”  There’s a reason for this:  People buy people and your future clients will be buying YOU.  Forgive me for stating the obvious, but you are the product.  Sure, clients want the solutions we offer. But they also need to be convinced that their coach walks their talk.

So you need to work on your own “personal foundation.” Be your own coach, every single day.  Do all the things you’d encourage your clients to do: read more

We hope you find this article enriching and motivating. If you would like more information on a Career in Professional Recovery Coaching visit us at:  http://ift.tt/1AwZyYw

 

Get in the Success Habit

Successful people have successful habits. Creating success-driven habits is not hard when you follow this step by step method that bestselling author Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul, 30 Day Sobriety Solution) shares in his recent blog article.  

As I’ve said countless times before, “Success leaves clues.” This means that if you want to be successful, then you simply have to look at what successful people have done before you. All successful people have successful habits – habits that they have created and refined over time because they helped them to reach their goals.  

Learning how to develop a habit can be as simple as observing others who are already successful. Study successful people, and then ask yourself which of their habits would help you to reach YOUR goals.  

Once you have that list, then it’s time to actively work on building those habits and making them a consistent part of your daily life.  

Now what I’m about to tell you is a step-by-step method to help you create better habits.  

It works because it’s simple. You don’t need complicated strategies. This template can be applied to any area of your life: business or personal. If applied consistently, it will help you achieve everything you want.  

Learning how to develop a habit involves three fundamental steps: Read more  

Helping clients set clear, attainable goals for themselves is a key part of coaching others through to success. The more you can use these tools yourself and see results, the more credibility and enthusiasm you will have when sharing them with your clients! Take the next step in your coaching career and explore our coach credential programs here: http://ift.tt/1AwZyYw

 

The Plus Side of a Positive Attitude

Life’s challenges can make it easy to slip into a negative attitude. However, a positive attitude can change the very things that are bringing you down! A positive attitude is considered by many experts to be the best predictor of success. Nothing else can impact so many factors that lead to success. So even if you have had a history of being down in the dumps with a negative attitude, the good news is having a positive attitude is a habit that can be developed over time.

Just consider the potential positive effects of just adjusting your attitude. A positive attitude:

1. Changes your interpretation of events. Obstacles are a part of any significant success. With a poor attitude, every obstacle is viewed as a threat, rather than a challenge. Obstacles can even be viewed as fun and interesting with the appropriate attitude.
2. Increases motivation. Nothing is more motivating than positive thoughts and expectations. Think about how you behave if you have a bad attitude and expect failure. Everything comes to a grinding halt. After all, why would you continue if you expected a negative outcome? A positive attitude ensures that progress continues.
3. Lowers stress. With a positive attitude, it’s much easier to be happy and relaxed. A poor attitude increases the amount of stress in any situation. There will always be stressful times, but a positive and optimistic attitude helps to diffuse the situation. A good attitude prevents and alleviates stress.
4. Inspires others. The people around you are affected by your attitude, including your coworkers, friends, and family. Those around you are more capable when your attitude is positive. People just feel better being around positive, optimistic people. This also benefits your personal success.
5. Fear is easier to overcome. Fear coupled with a negative attitude is the perfect recipe for becoming and remaining stuck. A positive attitude acts as a magnet for courage. Those most paralyzed by fear are those with the worst attitude and expectations.

Fear distorts perception, and a positive attitude reduces that distortion. A positive attitude can negate the effects of fear.

6. Increases endurance. When your attitude is negative, your stamina is reduced. It’s much more challenging to press on when you expect the worst. A poor attitude magnifies every setback and makes obstacles seem insurmountable. Those with a negative attitude whine and quit first. Those with a positive attitude seem indefatigable.
7. Boosts self-esteem. When you expect good things to happen, you can’t help but feel confident and good about yourself. Success is more likely to happen when you have faith in yourself. When you believe the best about yourself, you’ll take on bigger goals and accomplish more.
8. Attracts positive results. It’s often said that good things happen to good people. It would be more accurate to state that good things happen to those with good attitudes. You’ll attract better business partners and more opportunities in general when your attitude is at its best. And you will attract like-minded, positive people!

And finally there are cumulative positive results when you add together all the things we’ve mentioned … stamina, self-esteem, motivation and a positive mindset all foster an environment for success. Your attitude is an excellent predictor of your success. When you expect the best to happen, you’ll continue working until your goals are reached. You also attract better opportunities, feel better about yourself, and experience less stress. A positive attitude may be the best tool you can add to your success toolbox. Lift up your attitude and you’ll raise your results.

 

Managing Weight Gain on Medication – 7 Tips

A lot of people gain weight while on psychiatric drugs. Drugs like clozapine (Clozaril), olanzapine (Zyprexa) and quetiapine (Seroquel) increase insulin resistance and cause undue weight gain. Depending on the patient and the dosage, drugs may also result in hormonal imbalance, further aggravating the weight problem.

With some modifications in your diet and exercising schedules, you’ll be able to better manage your weight. Here are 7 immensely helpful tips from Therese Borchard

 

1. Control Food Portions

Skip the diet. Just limit your portions. Restaurants today tend to serve two to three times the amount of a healthy portion. We’ve added 570 calories A DAY to our diets since the late ’70s, and half of those calories can be attributed to large portions, according to research from the University of North Carolina in Chapel hill. In a Fitness magazine article, Lisa R. Young, PhD, RD, says, “Even though today’s serving sizes can be more than triple what the USDA recommends, they’ve become our new normal, and anything smaller can seem puny by comparison.”

I try to carve out an acceptable portion before I dig in, since it’s difficult to determine how much you’ve consumed otherwise. Sometimes I’ll use a smaller utensil to remind myself to savor the food and take small bites.

 

2. Eat Slowly and Chew Your Food 

You’ve most likely at some point wolfed down a massive meal and felt fantastic until 15 minutes later, at which time you secure a few plastic bags because you’re convinced that you’ll explode on your kitchen floor. It takes an average of 20 minutes for your brain to recognize that your stomach is full — a definite waiting period between the time that the fork delivers its bite to the mouth and the bite’s arrival to the stomach. Getting in sync with this digestive schedule can not only save you from discomfort, but can also trim your waistline. If you take your time to savor the food, you’ll feel more satisfied by eating less.

This is one of the reasons that French people don’t get fat, according to a study from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. They can better gauge when they’re full by using internal cues to know when to stop eating, unlike Americans who stuff their faces while watching TV or graze all day long, never sitting down for an official meal. The French may eat baguettes and brie, croissants and butter, and all the other forbidden foods, but they enjoy them at a table with friends or family.

 

3. Keep a Food Journal

Taking notes keeps you accountable for everything you put in your mouth. It’s all there on paper for you to read as many times as you want. Knowing that you’ll record everything as you’re stuffing your face with a pastry can be the difference between eating one chocolate croissant and four. You’ll also keep your momentum when you’re in a groove because you’ll see your progress as recorded in your journal. Finally, you can pick up on patterns of eating behavior during the month and connect binge eating to various stressors or other events.

 

4. Get Support

Just as it’s difficult to stop smoking if you live with a smoker, it’s much more challenging to lose pounds when you’re surrounded by junk food addicts. You’ll be less tempted to snack on Twinkies if they’re not in your house. Obviously, you can’t put the people in your household on a diet with you, but there’s a level of support you can ask from them. You might also try an online or local weight loss support group to discuss weight loss challenges and frustrations.

 

5. Set Realistic Goals

It can be tempting to set a goal of losing five pounds every week — or some other unrealistic goals for weight loss — much like we set New Year’s resolutions that never stick. It’s better to be conservative and realistic. The safest rate of weight loss is between 0.5 to 2 pounds a week. Typically, if you lose weight at a slower, consistent pace, you tend to keep it off. 

It’s helpful to break down your goals into incremental steps. For example, you might want to start walking for 10 minutes a day for two weeks, bumping it up by five minutes every week. You could also try to adopt a healthy diet in stages. For example, you might start limiting sweets for a few weeks before you attempt to cut out white bread.

 

6. Start an Exercise Program

You don’t need to run a marathon to get a good workout. Walking up to 30 minutes, three to four days a week is often enough to get your heart rate up and your pounds off. Choose an activity that’s convenient for you to do on a regular basis, and make it part of your day. It’s best to set a consistent time and stick to it.

 

7. Tap Into Your Emotions

Often, eating isn’t about hunger. It’s about soothing some emotional wound. Food can be a powerful source of comfort to relieve stress, sadness, anxiety, loneliness, or boredom. But there are more effective ways to soothe uncomfortable feelings, like calling a friend, walking, or engaging in a support group. By recognizing the behavioral and emotional cues, you can better direct your angst.

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Learn more at the Recovery Coach Training website

Fatal Addiction: Overdose on the Rise

In this CNN report by Jen Christiansen and Sergio Hernandez, the immense increase in drug overdose deaths in the United States is highlighted along with possible causes. The rate of drug overdose deaths has steadily risen since 1999 and in 2009 surpassed both auto accidents and death by gun violence. The drug overdose rate continues to soar.

In modern history, few things have caused such a sharp spike in US deaths as drug overdoses. CNN reached out to every state for the latest statistics on drug deaths, with half providing data from 2015. It found that drugs deaths continue to rise rapidly in many states. Epidemiologists in several states blame the increasing number of drug-related deaths on greater use of heroin and synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl. “If you look at the cause of death, we just don’t normally see increases like this,” said Robert Anderson, the chief of the mortality statistics branch at the National Center for Health Care Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read more

The numbers of lives lost to drug abuse is staggering. Almost every home and individual has been touched by addiction or codependency in some way. Professional Recovery Coaches recognize key indicators of drug and alcohol abuse problems before they get out of hand and ruin lives. Find out how a PRC Credential and training can equip you to stem the tide of loss for people from all walks of life: http://ift.tt/1AwZyYw