Write yourself a postcard to focus and feel better

Do you ever write to yourself?  Of course you do - we all write notes to help us remember things.
Some people put affirmations on post-it notes so they'll get a mini-pep talk from their computer screen or bathroom mirror. We write to put an idea outside of us so that it will stop wriggling and let us take a good look.

Journals are much longer - all those inviting blank pages (if you're on a computer, the screen is endless). If you fall into one, it can take a long time to climb out. As you begin to tell the story of who you are and what you are feeling, one thing can lead to another. It's hard to be positive and specific and if you're not positive, it's hard to leave the melancholy between the sheets. Longer writing carries the risk that the thoughts we wanted to focus will wriggle free and multiply.

Today, I wrote myself a postcard. There's not too much room on a postcard but it's quite a bit roomier than a post-it note. I wrote it as if I were writing to one of my friends or coaching clients.

I wrote it in two columns. On the left side, I wrote began with "I am impressed with how you. . ." and then I took a few sentences to talk about what's going well this month.  On the right side I started with "I know you are scared."

When I am being me talking to me "I know you are scared" can lead to a rather strained conversation. Either it spirals into all the very good reasons I have to be scared or it is met with some version of "you'll be fine."  This isn't how I talk to friends and clients, but it is frequently how I talk to myself.

On the postcard I said something like this: "I know you are scared. I don't know if you'll succeed. I do know you have light and power inside of you. Connect with that."

It's easier to offer encouragement after you've built up some evidence that what you are saying is true. So when you write your postcard, start with "What has impressed me about you (this month, this week, today)" and then tell the truth. Because even if you think that things are pretty bad right now, you're not just getting beat up. You're also writing a postcard so you can focus and feel better. And that, in itself, is a pretty impressive response.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The hypnotic contract

Under what conditions would you allow someone else to tell you what to think?   If you have watched a stage hypnotist, you have seen what looks like one person exercising remarkable control over the thoughts and actions of another. It is fascinating, in part, because we have all seen it happen in real life. Suddenly someone we know seems to be relying on someone else to do the thinking.  Even if the influence is good, it is a little frightening. The secret is that there are no magic words.  In order to lead someone into hypnosis, that person has to be willing to go there. Often the people you see on stage are more than willing. For whatever reasons, they are enthusiastic about giving up self control and allowing someone else to take charge. They know that there are limits to what can happen on stage and they are only agreeing to give up control within those limits. What you see in hypnosis is an agreement between two people. Like all agreements between human beings, it stretches as far...
Read more

Good with people

What do you think of when you hear the phrase "good with people?" When a wine is good with steak, it means that both the steak and the wine taste better when enjoyed together. If you are 'good with people' that could mean that both you and they perform better when you work together. "Good with people" should not be confused with charm or grace. Many famous leaders have, in the absence of any obvious charm or eloquence, managed to get people to produce at high levels. Some introverts fail to be influential; some extraverts fail to be effective. The most useful criteria for "good with people" is the performance that results when an individual is working with others: does the sum exceed the total of the parts? Or would they all have been better working from separate cubicles? We are entering the season of networking: it's a perfect time to observe the difference between the people who are working the room and the people who are making the room w...
Read more

The fine line between observations, suggestions and commands

I have been watching Tony Robbins this week in the documentary called " I Am Not Your Guru ." You can read a nicely ambivalent review in the Financial Times here.   I think the ambivalence is built into the process, which might be surprising given the loud celebration that characterizes the Date with Destiny in the film. For those of us whose work has evolved from NLP, there are lessons to be learned from modelling the most famous and successful practitioner of NLP (Robbins has far surpassed all the founders by all measures of success). Because he does so much so well, Robbins lets us see how fine the line is between observing and suggesting. Let me explain. Robbins frames his "interventions" both with the exercises and performances we do not see in the film and with his invitations. The film opens with an intervention with a young man who says he is suicidal; it is only later that we see Robbins say he is looking for someone who is suicidal to work with. Since...
Read more