I’ve been to two events this week where I’ve sung the song “Something Inside so Strong’ and it started me thinking how for me personally having something inside so strong has helped me to get my life back.
I love this song, at the choir it’s the song that we all sing best, I guess it’s our ‘signature’ song and for many women the words are really poignant. (The picture at the bottom is when I sang it with 14,000 others at the O2 on Saturday). I also sung it at a talk I attended by Dr Brené Brown at the School of Life and we were lead by the ‘Choir with No Name’, which comprises people who have been affected by homelessness. It must have great meaning for them as well.
The words to me signify triumph over adversity and isn’t that what overcoming childlessness is all about?
Watching Andy Murray win Wimbledon on Sunday, it also struck me that one of the main areas he’s developed in the last couple of years is an inner strength. It appeared that he really had an inner belief that he would win.
One of the things many of us struggle with is telling others that we don’t have children, and often we hold back because we don’t want to have to deal with the reply. I know how hard this was for me until I did some work to develop an inner strength. I believe that developing a core resilience is one of the building blocks to being able to live a positive life and that’s why it’s one of the fundamentals of the work I do with clients.
So here are 4 simple ways that you can make a start on strengthening that something inside.
1. Anchor
If you’ve got the e-book and done the exercise, you’ll know that setting a positive anchor is a great place to start. One of the keys is to ensure that you practice it regularly for a few days until it’s really strong and then keep it topped up by adding to it, especially when something great happens.
2. Values
I know what my core values are and it’s very important to me that I live them. Having those behind me gives me strength. For example one of my values is about being authentically me and sharing my story and one of my intentions of doing that is to help others to heal gives me the incentive. I wrote about how to find your values in this post.
3. Get outside your comfort zone.
They say that is where life begins and that has certainly been true for me over the past couple of years. In learning NLP, then developing this website and business I’ve stretched my comfort zone and it has really boosted my confidence
I really recommend that you do something to stretch and challenge yourself and you’ll be amazed how great you feel afterwards (and remember to anchor those positive feelings). Each time you do something it will make you a little bit braver and more confident.
It could be baking a cake, going swimming, asking a question in a meeting at work, anything that you’re worried about and/or you haven’t done before. Start with something small and after a few times move on to something bigger. You’ll find that there’s a ripple effect, and once you have confidence in one area it will expand to others.
I’ve been in the choir for 3 years and it’s amazing to reflect how we’ve all become more confident over that time. In the early days no one wanted to stand at the front in case they made a mistake, and now because of the confidence we have from doing it a few times, we don’t mind, mistakes happen and we take it in our stride.
4. Check your beliefs
Having beliefs that support you is essential to success. There’s evidence that this quote from Henry Ford is true and it certainly seemed true for Andy Murray. I’ll talk more about beliefs another time, and one tip when you’re unsure about something is to listen to what your inner voice is saying and if it’s not helpful then use the technique from the e-book to change it to something more positive.
So that was 4 ways you can make a start on developing Something Inside So strong. There are others and I’m sure I’ll come back to them later.
And if you haven’t done so already, signing up so to get the How to be Confident e-book by filling in the boxes above is a great first step to getting your life back.
If you’d like to discover how I can help you, book a complimentary session via my online diary and spend twenty to thirty minutes to get clarity on how we can work together. Alternatively fill in the contact form and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
