Stories we tell ourselves

I am back from a week's holiday and am feeling refreshed and ready to go. Although I stayed in Lyon and didn't go away it was still great to take some time out. The weather was great and I was able to go to the cinema and the gym, as well as catch up with friends and even meet up with a couple of children I used to look after.

One of the reasons that I felt so good after this week, was that I was ill when it started. I had a dose of  'flu.

I was interested by this, I realized it was something that we often tell ourselves. How many of you have said the following to yourselves (or to others!)
'I'm always ill when on holiday.'
'It's like my body knows it's time to relax and out comes a cold.'
'I was ill at the weekend, typical!'
'Couldn't believe I was antibiotics, so couldn't enjoy myself properly.'
'Whenever I start working at a new place I come down with an infection.' (a real childcarer's one that!)

The thing is with these statements is that if we say them often enough then we begin to believe them. At one point when I was working at a school in Hong Kong, I seemed to come down with an illness before every single holiday. As I used to travel a lot in these holidays (making the most of being in Asia) it felt as if I experienced every country with a blocked nose. I was even predicting that I would come down with a cold and my body was a little star and obliged every time! Talk about a self fulfilling prophecy.

So, after struggling through the last couple of days in the crèche feeling awful and waking up on first day off and canceling the dentist's as I had a raging sore throat and a temperature,I realized what I was doing.
I decided that I was going to go back to bed and sleep (I am a strong believer in the body healing itself during sleep) and that when I woke up that I would be feeling better. And I did. I slept most of that day and felt so much better and was able to start enjoying my time off.
Although I have been talking about illness, we do it all the time for different situations. Another one I used to tell myself was that I was an insomniac and couldn't sleep properly. The more I said it, the more I slept badly.

So when these negative thoughts pop up in your head, or you hear yourself saying something negative, stop and think. Is it true? For me, I have been on plenty of holidays and not been ill and need to remind myself of that and change the thought. It may take a while for these new thoughts to become automatic, but keep at it and congratulate yourself for every achievement along the way.

So what story are you telling yourself?

How about making it a positive one, something that you want to happen?

Babysteps

Learning to walk combines muscle control, co-ordination and balance. It is an incredibly complex process and one that we take for granted, though it took us an average of 15 months to learn all the skills needed to suddenly be walking. Something we don't even think about now, we just stand up and move off, one foot in front of the other.

When watching the babies at work grow and develop it is a constant reminder to me how we have to put all the little things together to get the big rewards. As well as accept that we may have failures and set backs on the way and despite that, not give up.

Last week I was in the crèche I turned round to see a little 9 month old girl standing up and clutching on to the wall, with a look of delight and puzzlement on her face. This was the first time we had seen her pull herself to standing and as I was in the middle of congratulating her, she fell and cried! A cuddle and the world was soon a better place. This will not be the last time she falls in the process of learning to walk, with some inner determination she will continue to try and try again.

Likewise a little boy who is taking his first tentative steps is also falling over on a regular basis, but he will always get up and try again.
Why is at adults we are so much more likely to give up on something that we are learning to do? I went skiing one time and kept falling over. I was able to acknowledge that this was part of the learning and if I continued I would get better at it. I enjoyed the day and would like to learn properly, however the Alps are only a couple of hours away and I haven't rushed back and until I go back and spend time learning all the little bits and putting them all together, I know I will never be able to ski gracefully down the slopes.

We need to learn from the children, not only how they get up and go again but also to put the stages together bit by bit, take our time (for the really big goals) and not give up in order to succeed. We need to celebrate the baby steps on the way and allow ourselves time to become so skilled it becomes second nature.
In order to help our self motivation we also need to look to our support networks for help and encouragement - friends, families, colleagues and if needed professional teachers, trainers and coaches, to help us on the way to taking our first steps.