It’s hard to believe that we are already in February, Christmas just seemed to be upon us yesterday. It was amazing to see the Easter eggs in the supermarket sometime in January. I hope your year has shaped up well and you were able to reflect on the last message from Amovita about setting your goals for the new year. By now they are well underway. I remember a couple of years ago, going to a 3 day taster on Christopher Howard’s training programs in Brisbane. Chris is a captivating speaker and he and his team did an amazing job of engaging a group of 2000 people. Chris has developed a range of training programs to assist people to develop a formula for success. The reason I have mentioned Chris’s work is because part of the training he does is related to our last topic on goal setting. Have you ever wondered why you have not reached the goals set for the year. I know at different times I have. I was committed to achieving my goal, but did not quite get where I wanted to be with that goal and I tend to be a goal orientated person. I work towards my goal and the next one after that. Now I work with others to reach their goals and it does work. The question is how does it work. It works by … understanding you and your environment!

1. Understanding Your Self Talk

By knowing how you talk to yourself internally will give you an idea of what your self talk is. Throughout our childhood and growing into adulthood we are given thousands of messages from lots of different sources. Our caregivers, our extended family, teachers, dance classes, soccer team etc. We do take on the positive messages we were given and we also have taken on the negative messages also and these are the ones that stop us from reaching our real potential. Its the negative messages that stops you from living your life how you truly want to, having the most positive relationships you can, dealing with the fear that may grip you from making that all important decision you really want to. When you stop and reflect on those messages you will probably be surprised on the messages you have been given. So step 1 is to understand your own self talk.

2. Make A Decision

Just stop and think for a moment how you make decisions in your personal and work life. Yes I know sometimes the workplace makes decisions for us, I am refefring to decisions other than policy. What steps do you take in making a decision. Do you think about things for a while, sit on your thoughts, come back to them, think a little more and then make your decision? Are you a person that finds it difficult to arrive at a decision and would rather refer it to someone else to assist you in the process? Are you someone who finds it very easy to make a decision quickly and sometimes wishes they had make the decision a little slower? No matter what process you go through, the important thing is to make a decision about something…what ever your goal may be. By making a decision you are understanding your self talk and that will give you a clue to how you can change something in your life you may want to.

” there is no passion to be found in playing small – in settling for a life less than the one you are capable of living”   Nelson Mandela

3. Externalise Your Beliefs About Yourself

Your beliefs, the way you see yourself, the messages you have been given will determine how do your self talk, what you say to yourself in a given situation, what your emotions are at any given time and then how you act this out. Many years ago I ran some workshops with a psychologist who had undertaken some research on how we undergo self talk and how this resulted in developing our self esteem. The other thing we talked about was how we need to consider how vulnerable we are to others view of ourselves or how we perceive feedback from others. These two things in combination are a powerful mix and indicator of our own belief system. By exploring how your own belief system is will tell you what you need to focus on to get the results you would like to in your life, how to reach those goals you  have set for yourself. By working with a professional you can explore and externalise those beliefs and only then when they are discovered can you truly begin to change them.

4. Focus on Changing Your Focus

What you focus on grows! Did you know that? Try it, think about what you are focused on in your life. Jot down through the week what you focus on the most. Is it work? Is it the challenges in your life? The bills? The conflicts in your life? When we focus on the negatives, they tend to follow us around. Our self talk is more negative and we are unable to leave those chains behind because there is not enough positive space to do so. What we focus on will result in what that focus is.  Only by stepping into your conscious mind will you be able to change the focus of what you really want to achieve. For some years I believed my focus was positive. Then why did I continue to have lots of financial woes, bills coming on a regular basis and I felt I was never going to get ahead. In 1990 my partner and I had a very successful business and life was great. We were about to start building a lovely home overlooking the sea, the children were healthy and happy, you know how the story goes. Then one day my world stopped. My partner came home at the end of one day and declared that we had lost everything, house, car, everything. Our business partner had been siphoning funds from the company and as a result we were broke. We started again, but the bills kept coming and I could not understand why. When I stopped and took stock of my own thinking and what I was focused on I discovered a lot! I began the journey of understanding my own self talk, what my belief system was like and then started refocusing. Yes I still get bills like us all, I still at times feel challenged by the juggle we need to do. Because now my focus is not on the negative bills that come in I am refocused to where I would like my life to be.

“when you experience something, anything, you can no longer be that same person, purely because of the experience you have had, it just depends on how you see the experience”  Tracey Harris

5. Challenging Old Beliefs

Its only when we explore what the beliefs are that are holding us back from achieving our goals, can we truly challenge them. Remember to keep the ones that serve you well and that are positive. You can challenge them by understanding your self talk. One way to challenge your old beliefs is to hang around with positive people. Positive people are infectious and they make us feel valued and appreciated. Their energy is vital to our own well being as well. By basking in others positive energy it gives us a way to keep focused on being positive. Write down the limiting beliefs you believe! you have and then think about how you would restate them to better fit your life and who you are. This can be quite tricky to do so don’t think you need to do this process on your own.

6. Rewrite a New Set of Beliefs

Remember to keep the positive ones, just rewrite the ones you really don’t want!!! The ones that are holding you back, keeping you in the space of fear, or anger or apathy. These ones are not serving you so well and are most probably stopping you from achieving the goals you may have. Focus on changing your focus. Turn towards being more positive, making your self talk more positive. Catch yourself being negative to yourself, and restate a positive message. Remember our emotions are a navigation guide to what may need attention and particularly when we may be experiencing sadness, anger, fear etc. These can provide us with a good understanding of what beliefs need to be rewritten. By unpacking or deconstructing the limiting beliefs can we then rewrite a set of new ones

Please feel free to share this with others, just refer them to our website for more information www.amovita.com.au

For more information on how to Maximise Your Potential for Real, contact Amovita Consulting today.

Amovita’s Christmas newsletter focused on reflection. Asking you to reflect on the year that was and what your focus for 2010 was going to be. For some that would be exciting, others a year they would rather forget!! Why do we gather our thoughts towards the end of each year and reflect on our achievements, the things we did not complete, the goals we met and those we did not. Why do we not achieve the things we set for ourselves?

Well one answer is, what we focus on grows! Thats right, if we focus our thought process on a particular thing, we give it energy, develop an action plan and before we know it a goal has been set and achieved. If we do not focus on the things we would like to achieve, then before you know it the year has finished!!! Having something to focus on, something to look forward to gives us a sense of purpose and something to strive for, work towards.

There is a lot written about goal setting and because a lot of the research and information about goal setting focuses on the goal in the here and now, many people do not reach their goals. A common goal that many want to achieve when the new year rolls around is to lose weight or read that good book they haven’t had the chance to!!!

However, often by the time the end of the year comes, many have not achieved their goals. They feel frustrated, puzzled, sad and experience a feeling of letting themself down. By focusing on the goal in the here and now sets up an expectation that many cannot keep.

There is hope, there is definitely hope. By goal setting in a very different way, you can achieve all the goals you set for yourself. You can focus on what you really want to achieve, and yes achieve it. When you focus on the characteristics and principles that successful people live by, their goals setting process is sound. And the great thing is that Amovita can work with you to help you focus on your goals and achieve them. We work with many of our clients to achieve success in their personal life, high performance in the workplace and 2010 could be one of the best years for you if you just put yourself in the right place.

So what is in store with Amovita this year

Amovita is set for a BIG year!!! We are developing a great new and innovating program for High Performance Leadership that will ensure you achieve the results you want to in your workplace. We have a great range of training and professional development courses on offer this year and ensure you link into our Mastermind program to link with other professionals.

Check out our range of services and programs on offer and remember when you request Amovita, you are ensuring you get a high quality and positive service.

I look forward to hearing how your goal setting goes and look forward to seeing you at one of our workshops throughout 2010. Book Amovita today to ensure you achieve what you want to achieve in 2010.

Tracey Harris

Where are you living at the present time? In a nice home somewhere here in Queensland, in a lovely house looking over Table Cape in Tasmania or at Brighton in Christchurch. Where ever you are living at the present time, have you thought about how you are spending your time and at what cost.

My beautiful daughter had a birthday recently and she chose to spend her time jumping out of a place – a perfectly good plane!! at 14,000 feet. When I asked her why she wanted to celebrate her birthday jumping (or being pushed) out of a plane, she replied with ‘why not’? It will be one of those memorable moments in her life where she spend that moment living her life just the way she wanted to.

So often like all of us we get caught up in working to make a living, visiting family and friends, studying and more working. The days move by very quickly and before we know it another year has passed. 2009 is shaping up to be quite challenging for many and more so than ever it is important to define the moments in which you live as much as you can.

One of the most positive ways to do that is to physically and emotionally STOP for a moment and visualise in your mind how you are Living in the Present Moment, and what you would like your Present Moment to be.

Try it, it really works! Why does it work?

Because when you are in the moment, you are not thinking of anything else, the challenges, the pressures that life presents us with at times, all of that will be in your past thoughts. If you find that you are thinking of the negatives, the pressures and the challenges then the MOMENT HAS PASSED.

The more you practice this skill the more LIVING IN THE PRESENT MOMENTS you will have. The more you practice, the more you will increase these moments and what a reward you will receive.

MOMENTS are precious, define the MOMENT in which you choose to live your life!

How are you LIVING IN THE MOMENT

Living in Queensland is no doubt a privilege. This has been magnified with the recent extreme weather conditions Australia is experiencing both in Northern Queensland and down south in Victoria.

I moved from gorgeous Tasmania to Sydney a few years ago now and was working for the Minister for Housing before we moved to gorgeous Queensland. Having grown up in Tassie was a great experience. If you have been to Tassie you know that there are many picturesque spots to visit and our family enjoyed camping and fishing so we got to see a lot of the apple isle!

When I was a child my dad was a fisherman who worked out of St Helens. So crayfish (Rocklobster) were in abundance. Boy I wish it was like that these days!

I recall one trip we had down the West Coast of Tasmania at a little fishing village called Temma. As he did every day, dad went diving. He recalled how the bottom of the sea bed was red with crays and he brought a few up for us to feast on. All he could say was ‘ all that red’. In the process he lost his fish spear. They were the good days. Yep these days I don’t very often get to eat cray.

Our many trips down to the rugged West Coast were lots of fun. We began our trips camping in tents, with the generator ’somewhere in the bush’ to supply power. We would cook our cheese sandwich with cheese and backed beans in a ‘waffle iron’ – something like a modern day toasted cheese maker. We would pile in the cheese and baked beansand wait for the camp fire to do the work. After many years we began taking the caravan and the good old generator ensured that mum could take the vaccum cleaner and a small outdoor fridge for the seafood.

Then there were the trips to King Island where some of our relatives live. The fishing is fabulous there, the residents characters and a pristine and gorgeous ruggedness that Tasmania and its islands are renowned for. With a population of about 1700 people, it is a tight knit community.

Yes Tassie is a lovely place! I recall another trip to Sandy Cape down the West Coast and growing up at the tender age of 9 I was the proud rider of a Suzuki 100 motorbike. Now as you can imagine as a 9 year old, it was a challenge to ride at times given it was difficult for my feet to reach the ground. I would often have to hold the bike up as I tried to get off and reach for the ground. My dad was very encouraging on the long bike rides on our motorbikes often saying to me, ‘come on you can do it’. There was one particular long trip that we went on across a few streams, bush, sand dunes and as a small child I was beginning to tire. There was one point where a tried to stop for a break and fell off on the sand dune. Yep my wonderful dad in his encouragement of resilience and determination, came back to where I had fallen off. He greeted me with a laugh and then hopped off his Indian bike and then came over to me, come on pick up the bike, you can do it, I know you can! Now quite a challenge for a 9 year old. But I did pick up the bike, hopped on with dad holding as remember I couldn’t really reach the ground and off we went. Those trips growing up were some of the most wonderful memories I have. I guess some of that encouragement and lessons on resilience have paid off during my life. Those lessons are part of what shapes us aren’t they.

I look forward to hearing some of your own great stories on resilience growing up, drop me a line, I look forward to hearing your childhood stories.

Until next time, Tracey

Tracey Harris
amovita consulting

A friend once said to me, ‘You know what Trace, people sometimes find it difficult to change, it is only when the pain of staying where that person is now, is more than the possibility of where they could be’ that the person takes on the commitment to change.

Through amovita, I work with lots of people who are experiencing pain in their lives. This can be personal pain, the pain of a broken relationship, deep sadness and prolonged grief from a past experience or pain from having to make a difficult decision about the future. Even more so at the moment with the global news on the economy and the negative messages we are saturated with, through the media every day, I am finding that some people are experiencing pain even more acutely. It is hard to get away from it affecting how you think and feel.

The question to ask yourself is – is there any pain, sadness or grief in your life at the moment? Is the pain of where you are now worse than the possibility of where you could be if you made some changes? It is sometimes hard to know. You may only know what the possibilities are if you begin the change process.

Many of us live our lives through the stories and beliefs that have been given to us growing up. We take on messages from a range of sources and that is how we construct our own story. As we grow into adulthood it is so important to look at the beliefs we have, do they serve us well or do we need to adjust the story a little to have the life we really want and deserve.

So often that little voice inside mentions, I am not important, I couldn’t get it right, If only I had of ….., I am not worthy and the list goes on. It is really difficult to identify these beliefs without knowing what story has been given to you.

If you were to write your own story to now what would the chapter headings be? If you were to write a story about your life in the future would the chapter headings be different in some way?

So have a think about it. What does your story look like and would you like the possibilities for your own future to be a reality.

I wish you a Merry Christmas and look forward to hearing from you in 2009. I look forward to any ideas for topics for our blogs you may have.

Tracey Harris
amovita consulting

How did you respond to the historic moment that the world witnessed recently with the election of Barak Obama? Think about what was going through your mind at the time you heard the news? Where were you? Were you driving somewhere, listening to it on the tv or radio? Think about what you felt at the time and then how you reacted?f

No matter what your political persuasion or ideology is, it would be very hard for anyone not to be touched in some profound way by Barak Obama’s election and his momentous speech.

€œI am asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change, I am asking you to believe in yours€ (Obama, 2008).

You know we all need something to believe in. That may be hope, the love of our children or partner. It may be your faith or you really enjoy the role you have in your workplace. It may be that special friendship or your role in your local community.

Recently, many millions of people around the world felt as though they now have something to hold onto. Something that is strong in their hearts and minds. Something that will carry them through the tough times, something that will enable them to look forward instead of backwards.

Today was not only about America, it was about the world. It was about you and I. It was about €¦.. the choices we make in our life and making different choices from today, because that very powerful speech was not about politics, not about any political machine or even Obama himself in many ways. It was about you and I. It was about believing in what is possible, not focusing our minds and energy to what is not.

It is shutting out as much as we can the negative news that washes over our lounges every night, only filling your lives with positive people and changing our own attitudes so that we are only positive to those we come across every day. Take the time when you can to check out where you are in your own life. What are the things in your life that are positive. That was probably very easy. Now think about the things are that not serving you well.

Maybe your job, maybe your relationship with your partner, children or other members of your family. Maybe you could be happier and more fulfilled in other areas of your life. When you doubt, you only have to really immerse yourself in what happened today, the positive thoughts that united the world, the feelings that run high and the attitudes that were changed today and anything, any change is possible.

Please be commited to your own changes, and let us know what changes would you like to make in your life. What do you believe you can do?

Until next time, I look forward to hearing from you

Tracey Harris
amovita consulting

Have you ever been talking to someone and they mention something that was exactly the same thing you were thinking or about to say?

How often have you talked to a friend, colleague or family member on the phone and they have remarked with, ‘I was just thinking about you’!

I have had that happen more times than I can say and at first it really surprised me and the more it has happened the less surprised I am. It has also happened the other way around. I was thinking of my cousin Sonja who lives in America a few weeks ago. She had been here for a visit three months prior and we had not caught up since she had returned home. Yes, as it happens between us, I was thinking of her one Saturday and then out of the blue on the same day I received an email from her. It was not surprise really and as we chatted across the universe to each other we had a great laugh as we caught up on the news of the last few months.

Another example I would like to share with you is we are also in the process of selling our house and I was talking about the sale price I had in mind. I didn’t mention that price to the real estate agent or to anyone else at the time. After the real estate had visited the property and completed the appraisal, he called to give us an idea of the price range and yes, you guessed it, the price I had in my mind was in that range - right in the middle!

This brings me to talking about the power of the mind. There is so much written and discussed about how to use the power of our mind to achieve what we really want in life. When we focus our mind in a positive way and visualize our emotions and energy on the positive things in our life, then we begin to get the results that we really want. When we challenge the negative messages that drive our thoughts, feelings and actions, we get the results in our life we really want.

Is there an area of your life that is letting you down?

What negative messages continue to hold you back from what you really want to achieve?

Do you surround yourself with only positive people?

Could your workplace do with an injection of positive energy?

How do you use the power of your mind?

You can begin to become more aware of your emotions and mindset right now. Think about the people that you have around you, the people in your workplace. Are they positive? Do you have relationships that are meaningful and do they add value to your life? Start today by focusing on the positive people in your life. How do they think? What is the language they use and how do they measure the successes in their life?

I invite you to share how you use the power of your mind and positive energy to achieve the life you have wanted. It would be great to hear from you if you have had any experiences where negative thoughts have not been beneficial to you.

We invite you to share this month’s message with those around you and invite them to share their thoughts and we will send them the first 2 steps in €˜Getting the Life You Really Want’

Until next month

Tracey Harris
amovita consulting

“The funny thing about life is, if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you just may get it’” – Somerset Maugham