Why is it important to complete an initial assessment when you first see your clients?

It is important to complete an initial assessment with clients, as you get to know each other and build a rapport. You also establish a starting point and what is important to the client. You can also see what ‘obstacles’ the client is facing and help them to overcome them. The most important aspect of the initial assessment is to discover a client’s aims and ambitions and how you can help them

How will diagnostic assessing support you to identify the career-related outcomes for your client?

Diagnostic assessing help establish a starting point. It also helps discover what type of learner a client is. For example, are they a Visual learner (YouTube, PowerPoint and Canva); and Audio learner (podcasts, audiobooks, music); Kinaesthetic learner (learning through movement, doing tasks) or are they a Retrospective learner; (learning through reading and reflecting on what they have already learnt? Typically, you are all a mixture of at least two, if not three, learning styles. The best results often come from understanding this approach and matching tasks and support to the client, in order to maximise goals and progress.

What is a goal and why is it important to establish your client’s goals?

A goal is a series of targets that when written down can be broken down and achieved with commitment, action, and consistency.

Which decision-making tools do you use when supporting your client when agreeing to an action plan?

My preferred decision-making tools are either Rodgers person fit assessment (Create relationship, Establish aims, Gather information, Identify direction/goals, Give information to client, Summarise progress and Clarify goals for next meeting.

Why is it important to identify both long-term and short-term goals?

It is important to have both long-term and short-term goals as long term goals are the ‘bigger picture and take longer to come together. Having short-term goals are often easier to achieve and make us feel like you are getting towards our longer-term aim and therefore motivates us to continue consistently showing up and acting on our goals

What is SMART targeting?

SMART Targeting is: –
S – When thinking of a goal be Specific. You want to achieve what? By when? For example, how many sales by when?
M – When thinking of your goal/target, how Measurable is it? How will you know when you have achieved it?
A – Is your target Achievable? What action is required by whom, how and when?
R – How realistic is your target? Do you have enough time/resources available to you?
T – What is the Timeframe? A timeframe is what you want to have achieved by when?

How does this support you in including your client in planning their career-related goals?

This supports my client/s having a clear, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely goal/s on paper to work towards. A plan being visible and worked towards every day makes it far more likely to be achieved. As a result of this your career related goals will be achieved much quicker and more effectively.

What is an action plan?

An action plan is a written method of goals and targets which you work on every day in order to succeed.

Explain what should be included in an action plan

There are many ways to write and action plan, but the things that should be included are:
What is your goal/s?
Why are they so important to you?
How are these goals going to be achieved?
Who is on your team to support you? Who is responsible for What tasks/actions?
Where is the action taking place? For example, online, face-to-face or both?

How do you include the client in agreeing on an action plan?

When a client is included in action plan from the beginning; they have ownership of the plan and as a result are far more likely to agree to it and stick to the actions. Before agreeing to anything both the client and the careers adviser should read the document and check if both parties agree to the plan. If not, things should be changed read again and then signed if everyone is happy. This process should continue until an agreement is reached on both sides and then the document can be signed

What other methods do you use to agree on career guidance options with your client?

A verbal agreement can be used or a text message. Something in writing is always better.

What other ways do you include your clients in the planning of career guidance and development options?

You could develop a group contract with a school or a business or a pictorial contract where young people can add to adapt and sign off.

Why is it important to follow the steps discussed in this task to ensure clients have clearly defined outcomes?

It is important to follow the steps discussed in your action plan so that you can clearly track the progress being made towards a bigger plan. Being able to visualise the progress you are making seem to make it happen faster!

Many children and young people are experiencing a lack of confidence in themselves and their own abilities. Sometimes it goes beyond confidence and young people fail to even like who they are let alone, recognise what they have already achieved or can and will achieve in the future.

It all starts with self-love.

Self-love Every day write down three things that you like about yourself or things that you are proud of. Read the list every day and add to it each day. Look at yourself in the mirror and repeat these words to yourself either in your head, or out loud. It may seem awkward or hard to do at first, however the more you practice; the easier it will become.

Self – talk is believing in yourself and being proud of who you are. Take a minute to think about how you speak to yourself. Is it positive or negative? Often self-talk is negative. Do you say, I messed up today or I did well today? Your mind gives you more of what you tell it so if you say I am proud of myself and what I have achieved today your mind will be kind to you and your confidence will build.

Affirmations

• I believe in myself
• I am proud of myself and my achievements
• I am becoming more confident every day

Self-confidence

Confidence is strange. As with most emotions you can gain and lose confidence regularly throughout the day. This depends on how you feel, what has happened in the day and how you respond to what has happened.

For more information contact Giselle on 075903 95089 or email contact@outsidetheboxeducation.co.uk

Developing good habits can help you transform your life for the better. Bad habits can lead you away from your own goals or worse – your happiness. However, by fostering good habits, you can inch closer to success, happiness, and the life you want. By taking the time to invest in your personal development, you can become a better version of yourself. Here are some good habits for a meaningful and happy life. Do not try to do them all at once, add one to your normal routine, and when you are comfortable with that add another and so on…

If you would like more information on this, please call Giselle on 075903 95089, or email me: contact@outsidetheboxeducation.co.uk

I will be happy to help.

1. Start Small

To develop good habits, you will need to start small. By starting small, you will need to pick one and only one thing first. Most people give themselves a multi-page list of things to change only to fail. Having one thing to focus out will naturally ripple out to other changes as well.

2. Remove Obstacles

Some habits are hard to commit to. You might live in an environment that will not support the habit you are forming. Or the one habit you are choosing is tough to maintain for a long time. For instance, say you are committing to a doctor recommended diet. The best way to remove obstacles in this case would be to pay for a meal delivery of the diet food already cooked. That way, you will not feel overwhelmed by cooking at the end of an exhausting day. Preparing it will be faster than ordering take out from a fast-food restaurant.

3. Practice Daily Meditation

Your first step in your journey to developing good habits takes place in the mind. Your mind is like a control centre for your life. It controls your moods, your actions, and how you live your life. If your mind is chaotic, you will live a chaotic life. If your mind is racing with negative thoughts, you will always see the worst in everything. But with meditation, you take back control of your mind. You might notice a negative thought arising but instead of internalizing it, instead you will watch it come and pass. That is the impact meditation can have. It gives you back your clarity, your focus, and your positivity.

4. Spend Some Time Outdoors

There is one vitamin that many people in colder climates are always low in, but it is essential to good health. That is Vitamin D. And you get it naturally from the sun. While going for a walk on a cold day may be less than ideal, spending time outdoors is crucial for good health. It is not just the sun. The fresh air you breath in and the ground your feet touch can help boost your mood and health. On warmer days, be sure to spend some time gardening or going for jogs around your neighbourhood. Developing this good habit can help you live a long life.

5. Read Mindset Books

Good habits come from good knowledge. It is hard to improve yourself if you do not know what that looks like, how to attain it, or if it is even possible. By reading books each night, you can learn new perspectives, new ideas, new skills, and so much more. Education is the secret to success.

6. Develop A Healthy Sleep Routine

One of the good habits you will need to develop is a proper night-time. Going to bed at the same time each night (including weekends) is a great way to help develop a pattern that will help you get your rest. Aim to go to bed at 9 or 10 in the evening to wake up naturally in the morning, instead of being startled awake by your alarm.

7.Express Gratitude

One of the good habits you can build to increase your happiness is expressing gratitude each day. Compile a gratitude list each morning to reflect on what you have and to reap the benefits of gratitude. It has never been easier to lose sight of all the wonderful things we have in our life. All you need to do is head to Instagram and look at your friends vacation pictures, slim figures, loving couples photos, and picture-perfect life. You will want to try a social media detox for a while.

8. Start A Hobby

Some say people should invest in three hobbies: one that keeps you fit, one that makes you money, and one to boost your creativity. Overall, this is pretty sound advice for anyone looking to develop good habits. There is a healthy balance between those three things. You start running each day with a group, then freelancing on the side, and you practice guided meditation for focus.

Each activity helps improve a different focus in your life. The hobbies do not need to invest in too much time either. You can practice meditations in 10 or 20-minute sessions. Running for just half an hour each day can give you a runner’s high without eating up time. While a side hustle can eat up time. Yet, you can also choose one that allows you to automate processes to save you more time. These three good habits allow you to have balance in your mind, body, and finances.

9. Smile

You would be surprised at what kind of impact something as simple as a smile on your face can have on someone. If you regularly walk around with a smile on your face and a positive mental attitude you can bring happiness and joy into other people’s lives. People will also be less combative with you. You will find friendlier faces in your daily interactions. And it all starts with a smile.

Smiling is contagious as well. So, if you are walking down the street and smile at a stranger, that person will highly likely smile back at you. What you do not see is that that person was having a bad day and yet your smile shifted their focus – even if just for a moment.

Smiling is one of those good habits you will want to develop to live a happier life and to make the lives of those around you happier as well.

10. Try Right Brain Activities

When thoughts get louder than usual, it is usually due to an overactive left brain. So, to have some mental peace and stability you will want to strengthen your right brain. Thus, right brain activities are good habits to develop. The right brain is known as the creative brain so any creative activity will help calm the chatterbox in your head. Some examples of right brain activities include meditation, painting, drawing, colouring, gardening, cooking, family hangouts, graphic design, matching games, fashion design, scrapbooking, or even just making things. Keep in mind that writing also activates the left brain due its use of language, so you will want to minimize the amount you do. Those with more active right brains tend to calm the mind more than active left-brain people.

11. Speak Kindly

One of the good habits you should consider developing is speaking kindly – even during tough conversations. Aim to be empathic with people who may be disgruntled, mad, or frustrated. Sometimes people take out their frustrations on you. But it is important to remember that you have full control over your reaction of every event that happens to you.

And with that power knowing how much control you have; it is necessary to do your part in the world of spreading kindness. You cannot take back hurtful words and it is extremely difficult to undo the damage toxic words can have on people.

12. Exercise

On any good habits list, exercise always finds a way to creep its way in. With busy workdays and family life keeping us so busy, we tend to put our physical and mental health on the backburner. But the lack of exercise can cause serious health issues for you down the road.

By developing good habits like exercise, you will feel more energy throughout your day which will make you happier. Those endorphins sure know how to make you feel good. Plus, you will be taking part in living a healthy life. Doctor recommended.

13. Recite Positive Affirmations

Good habits such as reciting positive affirmations can help you maintain a positive attitude. Studies show that optimistic people live longer, are more social, and achieve greater careers. While pessimism may be a genetic trait, it is possible to rewire the brain to become more optimistic. You can do this by reciting positive affirmations, doing right brain activities, practicing meditation, and doing other calming activities. Objecting to negative or toxic thoughts by replacing them with positive thoughts is a healthy way to help challenge thoughts that do not uplift you. Every time a negative thought enters your mind, think of the polar opposite thought to help train your brain to think positively. For instance, “I can’t lose weight” becomes “If I keep eating healthy and exercising, I will lose weight.”

14. Eat a Balanced Diet

The busier we get the easier it is to just open up that Uber Eats app and order take out. But that quickly becomes a slippery slope. It starts off with just one order but before you know it, you are ordering take out several times a week. And the chef is definitely not putting in the ingredients that make up a healthy meal.

Eating a balanced diet is one of those good habits you will want to do. And with so many different diets and meal plans to choose from, it seems like there is a lot of confusion about what a balanced diet even is.

15. Spend Time with Friends

One of the most neglected good habits is spending time with friends. As we grow older, family life takes over and friends get replaced. But the happiest people are those who have maintained their friendships into old age. Your friends are the people who knew you before you fell in love or started a family. They are important people too!

Find time to spend with your friends. Simple things such as celebrating birthdays, mailing random thinking of you cards in the mail, or going out to a quick coffee can really help you strengthen your friendships. Unbelievably, you will immediately remember how much fun it is to hang out with your friends. All the silly inside jokes you have, all the wild memories you have shared together, and that feeling of being accepted and loved by someone who is not blood. It feels surprisingly good.

16. Practice Mindful Living

Mindful living is all about being present in the world. If good habits do not involve real world living, what is the point? When was the last time you looked up while going out for a walk? Have you ever looked up from your phone to talk (phone-free) with your family? Do you pay attention to labels when buying food to ensure you are nourishing your body with vitamins, minerals, and nutrients galore? You have eaten your favourite meal dozens of times. But have you ever eaten it slowly, focusing on the chew to really taste it, instead of gulfing it down? On these good habits list, you are not just going to want to try these things but do it with attentiveness and focus. That is what living is really all about.

17. Journal

Good habits like journaling allow you to express yourself. Journaling can take many forms. For some, they might be diary entries into your day-to-day life to reflect on at a later point (for that memoir you will write someday). For others, it could be a creative outlet to design and plan your life, help you achieve your goals, or hold you accountable for an important practice, such as a gratitude journal, bullet journal, or mindfulness journal. Journals do not need to focus on novel length stories, you can use drawings, calendars, stickers, or bullet points to share your wild thoughts and ideas. Journaling can inspire you to self-reflect, achieve, and share all in one place.

18. Analyse Your Week Each Sunday

One of the best good habits to have is to regularly monitor your performance and behaviour each week. You can keep a journal or answer the same set of questions. By picking a set day of the week such as Sunday to do this, you ensure that you consistently do this good habit. To live a meaningful life, you need to regularly check-in with yourself.

Which good deeds did you do this week? Were you always kind to others? Are you moving towards or away from your goals? Did you spend enough time fostering relationships with those you care about? Did you fall off the wagon for any of your goals? How can you improve? By asking yourself questions like this each week, you hold yourself accountable. You can answer the same set of questions each week so that you stay committed to what you are setting out to accomplish.

The key point we want to highlight in this blog, is the unfair pressure that perfection puts on us to achieve our goals. This goal of perfection can be so debilitating that it prevents us from starting something at all.

While fighting this negative goal of perfection, I’d also like to highlight that it is amazing to start things. This works well in a start-up world where you don’t have all the answers but you’ve to start to get somewhere. Instead of losing yourself in the detail and planning forever – the focus is to just define a cut-off point. Once you reach that stage, just start working so that you have feedback to build on. Or else, you can easily get lost in over planning without any progress at all which is far worse!

Everything starts with a dream or a purpose/goal. This usually defines your endpoint which inspires you. We then start ideating about this goal and the best way to achieve it. Of course, planning is brilliant and very important too. But is planning everything?

The only thing that will give you any feedback is your action. Planning provides a perspective and a line of thought. It also helps you ask the key questions. But at some point, you’ll need to decide that you’ve completed planning and it’s time for action. This is precisely where things happen, and you can create the magic you desire.

Of course, you will not like all the results, but that’s part of doing something isn’t it? If everything was done right at the start – there is no point in starting something at all. The beauty of a dream lies in making it a reality – everything else can be a distraction if you are obsessing over the plan.

You have to start somewhere before you get lost!

We all have big dreams. And big dreams are good.

The unfortunate factor was, even though these dreams were fantastic, they were too big to actually make a difference. Slowly, the dreams took shape of a giant task which would overwhelm them and finally found a way to rationalise it to a closure.

Before you think I am driving into a negative spiral, I would like to impress the fact that I am not rambling. But I would like to note that there are dreams which don’t take a starting point because they are too large to imagine the starting point to work from. This post is dedicated to identifying the starting points for these dreams.

You don’t have to be great to start

As we have rambled in the previous subheading, this one is about splitting a large dream into multiple steps – bite-sized chunks from which you can focus on what you really need to do. Most dreams fail right at the starting point because they are too large to fathom. It is all about breaking down the big vision into smaller visions and missions.

You do not need all the skills right from the start. If you want to be a top badminton athlete, you don’t start with registering for the National Games. You start withholding a bat, learning your stance, building the stamina. You also work through identifying the competition, the skills you need to develop and then start pushing through. You will never be the top athlete when you start, but you will start the journey.

It is all about the journey

You must have heard this a thousand times now. You might even be irritated that most people talk about the journey where happiness and achievement lie and not the end goal. Although cliched, we can not deny its truth. It is in these journeys you identify the shortcomings and work through them.

You cannot build your success path based on failure. You need the small successes to build upon – these are factors that indicate if the efforts you make are working. You use this as feedback and then start moving forward. Face the challenges and keep moving forward. If you look at your dream as the giant one, split it out into marked achievements. Know what these achievements and successes look like.

If you wait for the final goal to be reached, you will never succeed. Start small, succeed and fail small. You don’t have to flog yourself until you reach the final goal. There are lot of successes to celebrate in the journey as you get to the final goal.

Ideas alone can’t win! – We must take action.

Ideas are great. But ideas are dime a dozen. Ideas are floating around everywhere we see. Most people give you fantastic thoughts, nuggets of knowledge. Knowledge sure is power, knowing is fantastic. But it means nothing unless you act upon it. You have all this knowledge and experience for a reason.

Let’s make 2022, the year, we set a goal, turn that into a process, which we commit to taking action every day and win!

Our top goal and priority are to make sure that children are emotionally and physically healthy. Children should be happy, healthy, and kind. Happiness comes from within and for children, it is especially important that parents and adults should try to create a positive and happy atmosphere at home at school and in life as a whole.

Children look up to their parents, family, and other adults around them to learn good and bad habits. So be aware of what we say and our own behaviour around children as children and young people of copy our behaviours; modelling how we are towards them.

Raising a happy child does not mean parents should flood them with gifts and goodies, happiness and mental wellness in child comes in many forms. It is the responsibility of parents, adults, and teachers to assure how and in what ways they are bringing up a child who is happy.

Few basic things to keep in mind while raising a happy child–
Success and Failure:

Teach your child that failing is a learning experience because it means you have dreamed big and tried. There is a saying that says ‘if at first you do not succeed, try, try and try again’.

Tell your child a few humorous and happy stories. The great mistake good parents make is doing too much for their children. If you really want to boost your child’s self-esteem and wish they should be contented, focus less on compliments and more on providing them with ample opportunities to learn new skills. While it can be difficult to watch our kids struggle, they will never know the excitement of proficiency unless we allow them to risk failure.

Happy Parents Raise Happy Kids:

Children absorb everything from us, our moods matter. Happy parents are likely to have happy kids. One of the best things you can do for your child’s emotional well-being is to give them the Positive and Happy Atmosphere and also let them feel the warmth you spread when you meet people.

Praise the Right Stuff:

Praise the effort rather than the result; Praise the creativity, the hard work that goes into achieving, more than the achievement itself.

Kids who are praised for being bright become intellectually timid, fearing that they will be seen as less smart—and less valuable—if they fail.

So instead of showing the kids all the good things let them face the bitter reality and make them mentally strong to face all odds.

Provide Real Responsibilities:

The more you can convey to your child that they are making a unique contribution to the family, from an early age, the greater their sense of self-worth and ultimate happiness. For example, if your little one loves to organize things, give them the job of sorting the forks and spoons, entertaining the baby sibling while you get dinner on the table. So always acknowledge that they are making a contribution to the family, it will heighten your child’s sense of connection and confidence, most important factors for lasting happiness.

Practice Habitual Gratitude:

Teach your kids to be always grateful for small things, to others, if someone did anything for them and should always show gratitude towards others and always be thankful to God for everything. This will make them contented and Happy naturally.

Small Things make the biggest difference:

Eat at least one meal together with whole family, Go for walks, Do some exercise or yoga with family, engage your kids in organizing small get together party for family.

These are few ways which will bring closeness among family members and kids can experience a strong and healthy bond with family, resulting into natural happiness.

Always make sure that in order to bring a happy, contented, and independent child, it is the foremost duty of parents to create a positive and lively Atmosphere for kids because kids can only understand and follow what they see and what they observe around them.

Finally, the best thing you can do to help raise happy kids is to give them a loving environment. Kids who know they are loved and cared about are more likely to grow and succeed, even when they face tough circumstances in life.

So many times, we hear the phrase ‘good luck’. Or fingers crossed. Does it work? To some extent it does. motivation can be tough sometimes, but so can luck. Some people who always seem to have luck on their side, and some who seem to just be terribly unlucky. Or is that an illusion?
Luck is an interesting concept. It sounds much like I got lucky winning that race or luck was not on my side today, so I did not do so well. I think there is an element of luck in everything we do but should we rely on it as a source of motivation?

Luck vs. control

Luck is the result of chance. Win or lose, good or bad, it’s not something you have control of. It just happens. But here’s the real story. As human beings, we either have an internal locus of control meaning we are motivated internally and feel like we have control over our actions… Or we rely on a very unreliable source of control and motivation which comes from external sources. Luck is the latter. It is an unknown, undetermined, external source of motivation and control, but one ironically that is not motivating, and we cannot control luck at all.

Attributes ‘lucky’ people have that leads to success

1. Be Mindful.

Mindfulness is being non-judgmentally alert and aware of what’s going on around you as well as inside you—how you’re thinking and feeling. Mindfulness occurs on a moment-by-moment basis. When you are operating mindlessly, on autopilot, you are unlikely to observe opportunities or take advantage of a situation. One important key to happiness, and a key factor in becoming lucky, is developing a mindfulness mindset.

2. Be proactive.

“Lucky” people make things happen. They are proactive rather than reactive. They make their future. And when you can take responsibility for your words, actions, and behaviour, you have more control of your destiny. There are three kinds of people: Those who make things happen; those who watch things happen; and those who wonder what just happened. Yes, you might get lucky, and £100 might fly in through your window while you’re sitting on the couch, but your luck of finding some money on the street would improve if you were outside walking in the first place. A colleague may appear to be lucky when she tells you that she got eight new clients today; until you find out that she started working two hours before you and skipped her lunch break. She also took that online course on “completing the sale” that you thought wouldn’t be worth it.

3. Be opportunistic.

Successful people are opportunists. They have the ability to take advantage of novel and often concealed opportunities when they arise. Many people are blind to opportunities because they don’t notice them or because they are inflexible and stuck in their ways. People who practice opportunism see opportunities all around them and are able to use them to their advantage. Being an opportunist involves being mindfully aware; being flexible enough to change your original plans; and being open-minded enough to take advantage of these new opportunities. We often think of people who have travelled extensively throughout the world as being “lucky.” The truth is that most people have had many opportunities to travel at different times in their lives, yet have not taken advantage of them. They may have felt like they didn’t have the money, needed to work, wanted to start their career, or didn’t want to leave family or friends behind. While there were many possible reasons at the time for not going, years later these reveal themselves as mere excuses for not taking advantage of opportunities.

4. Be insightful.

There are two types of knowledge—explicit and implicit (or tacit). Explicit knowledge is the kind people gain from reading books and going to school—factual stuff. Implicit knowledge is what we achieve through observing and experiencing—things you really can’t teach. Both types of knowledge are important to help guide decisions or choose particular pathways. A hunch may be an uninformed guess—worth as much as flipping a coin—or it may be based on in-depth explicit and implicit knowledge—and insight! We all have insight to varying degrees, yet some are better than others at being open to hearing those inner voices. Making use of this knowledge depends on your ability to access this information and trust in yourself. Having insight involves integrating explicit and implicit knowledge with an understanding of social situations and emotions, both yours and others’. Insightful people have higher emotional and social intelligence—being able to “read” people and understand unspoken issues in a social situation. Lucky people seek knowledge and experiences and make the best use of their insight.

5. Be flexible.

Life is dynamic—always changing. Heraclitus said, “You can’t step in the same river twice.” The truth is that you can’t even step in the same river once, because even as you step in, it is changing. Appreciating the dynamics of life and being able to go with the flow provides enormous advantages to finding new ways of doing things or getting places or creating opportunities. Lucky people are flexible and take advantage of new situations.

6. Be optimistic.

The optimist believes that this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist is afraid that this might be true! I stop at a restaurant with my friend. He complains, “Look at this cup of coffee, it’s half-empty!” I respond, “Oh, that’s too bad, they gave me one that is half-full.” We both received the same amount of coffee. But I certainly sound like the lucky one. Luck isn’t limited to objective findings; one person’s poison is another’s cure. In other words, if an optimist and a pessimist both win the same prize in a lottery, only the optimist will appear to be lucky. Optimism helps you see the advantages in any given situation. Lucky people with an optimistic outlook are better able to identify the silver lining in any given situation.

7. Think outside the box.

It’s not enough to be flexible and to accept changes as they occur. To truly enhance your ability to be lucky, take advantage of alterations in your schedule and changes in your plans. Lucky people think out-of-the-box. A hiker is isolated in the wilderness for days with his arm stuck between two rocks. Another day and he’ll die without food and water. He makes it out alive by cutting off his own arm to free himself. Was he lucky? A pessimist might say that he wasn’t—he lost his arm. An optimist would say that he was—most people would have died in that situation. How did he become lucky? Out-of-the-box thinking. It isn’t always painful; often it involves looking for loopholes and looking at situations from multiple perspectives. Two companies are competing with similar products. The one that thinks outside the box with an innovative redesign or a novel marketing strategy is the one who will appear to be lucky.

8. Be resilient.

Transform limiting problems into motivating challenges. Take advantage of new situations. Several of history’s most famous inventors found out thousands of ways to not do something before they finally figured out something that worked. Were they lucky? Most people would think so. Obviously, these individuals were very bright—but there are a lot of bright people in the world. What made these people different was their resilience—the fortitude to continue to pursue their dreams, goals, and aspirations in the face of adversity.

There are some positives of being a person who feels like you have luck on your side. People who feel this way also seem to have a more optimistic, positive outlook on life which as a performer can be helpful. Lucky people tend to be more confident and have an overall better sense of wellbeing. These lucky people also tend to handle adversity pretty well. They are able to see it as the setback it is and move on. They tend to take risks because they think that good things will happen.

How using luck as motivation impacts performance

The most important thing to recognize is that if you’re using luck as a determining factor of success, there’s no way to define it or control it. When you compete, you’re either lucky or unlucky and it doesn’t have anything to do with you. When you use ‘luck’ as your barometer, then winning and losing doesn’t have anything to do with how much training you’ve done or how you’ve prepared. This can leave you feeling anxious, lacking confidence, and feeling out of control because you have no compass. No direction.

Take control of how you perform

You can develop an internal locus of control or internal motivation. It is not as difficult as you might think, and it has huge implications on performance. You get to perform for the love of performing. When you realize that you are in control of your performance, you get to decide what you want to have happen and how. You define the process versus letting others do it. You realize that you can’t do anything about the sun, the wind, or what someone else does.
Outside factors, and people are out of your control. What you can control is you.

Luck is usually a product of fear of failure, or sometimes fear of success. However, if you don’t take the control you have, you are setting yourself up to fail anyway. It is in your control to train hard, work hard, develop an internal sense of motivation, and perform the way you know you can. After all, that is why you spend so much time doing what you do.

What you say to yourself matters. How many times a day do you say, or think negative things about yourself, 100’s right? Imagine what would happen if you said or thought 100’s of positive things about yourself a day.

Here is what would happen!

1. Helps to Reduce Stress

Research has shown that people who are more inclined towards thinking optimistically, are also more inclined towards positive self-talk and utilize more active coping strategies when faced with difficult situations.

Positive self-talk helps you reframe the way you look at stressful situations, understanding that you will approach challenges with the best of your ability and that whatever the outcome – you did the best you could. Tackling these situations with an ‘I can do this’ mindset rather than a negative ‘This is too hard’ one, opens up new ways of thinking and problem-solving.

 2. Helps to Boost Confidence and Resilience

Approaching life with a positive self-talk approach can help to boost your self-confidence. Individuals who score highly for optimism and positive self-esteem are more likely to achieve their goals, score good grades and recover quickly from surgery.

3. Write down positive phrases on your mobile and practice them every day

Regular positive self-talk can help you to feel more confident in the face of achieving your goals, as you instil yourself with the belief that the things you want are achievable, and when problems do arise, you find workarounds.

4. Helps Build Better Relationships

You are aware of what it feels like to be around someone who is positive, self-assured, and content in who they are as a person. They exude confidence, and it reflects positively on those around them. People who were more optimistic experienced higher levels of cooperation and positive outcomes.

People who utilize positive self-talk are also extremely capable of noticing the positive traits of those around them.

Is There any Evidence that Suggests it can Help with Anxiety and Depression?

The research supports the idea that positive self-talk can indeed help with disorders like anxiety and depression. This is mainly because negative self-talk has been widely linked with disorders such as depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, aggression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Flipping self-talk to positive has also been shown to mediate some really great results with young people diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.

What this tells us is that positive self-talk can help to overcome these disorders, by correcting the bias towards negative thoughts and beliefs we might hold about ourselves.

Can it Help Combat Stress?

Briefly, yes. As touched on briefly, one of the benefits of positive self-talk is that it can help you approach challenges and stressful situations with a more open and optimistic mindset.

Positive self-talk is not about knowing all the answers or thinking you are amazing, it is simply about reframing how you view things, removing negative bias, and approaching life with the idea that you can tackle things – and even if it does not go perfectly – you will learn from it for next time.

10 Examples of Positive Self-Talk Statements and Phrases

If positive self-talk seems like foreign territory to you, it might be difficult to know where to begin in terms of effective positive statements and phrases to try. It is important to know that not everyone’s positive self-talk will be the same, and you should try a few different approaches to find the ones that work for you.

Here are ten just to get you started:

1. I have the power to change my mind.
2. Attempting to do this took courage and I am proud of myself for trying.
3. Even though it was not the outcome I hoped for, I learned a lot about myself.
4. I might still have a way to go, but I am proud of how far I have already come.
5. I am capable and strong; I can get through this.
6. Tomorrow is a chance to try again, with the lessons learned from today.
7. I will give it my all to make this work.
8. I cannot control what other people think, say, or do. I can only control me.
9. This is an opportunity for me to try something new.
10. I can learn from this situation and grow as a person.

Before you can begin to use positive self-talk, you first need to identify how often and what type of negative thinking/self-talk you engage in. Once you understand this, you can make a start on retraining your thoughts.

Negative self-talk tends to fall into one of four categories:

Personalizing – Meaning you blame yourself when things go wrong.
Polarizing – Meaning you see things only as good or bad, no grey areas or room for middle ground.
Magnifying – Meaning you only focus on the bad or negative in every scenario and dismiss anything good or positive.
Catastrophizing – Meaning you always expect the worst.
You might identify with only one of these categories or multiple. The point is once you start categorizing your thoughts like this, you can then begin to switch them for more positive frames.

This will not happen overnight, and you will need to ensure you put in the practice to really hone in on your self-talk and identify where changes are needed.

Some strategies you might use to achieve this could include:

1. Identifying Self-Talk Traps

Some situations may cause us to indulge in more negative self-talk than others. For example, an introvert might find negative self-talk crops up when they have to attend social events or networking.

Identifying these traps can help you put in more preparation to address and switch your negative to positive self-talk.

2. Utilize Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations are a great way to switch up our self-talk chatter. Before a situation even arises that might incite negative self-talk, practice saying positive affirmations in the mirror to encourage your positive approach to yourself.

Visual cues are also excellent reminders to adopt a more positive approach. Little notes, posters or post-its around the house with positive expressions can make a huge difference to your daily mindset.

3. Check-In With Your Emotions Regularly

Switching to positive self-talk takes effort. We are so attuned to negative self-talk that it might only take one or two minor setbacks to put you back down that path.

When challenges do arise, make sure you check in with how you are feeling and that your self-talk has not gotten negative. Bring it back with some positive phrases.

4. Do not Be Afraid to Create Boundaries

Sometimes there are people in our lives who do not bring out the best in us. Identifying self-talk traps might also mean identifying a person or two who encourages you to think negatively about yourself. It is okay to create boundaries and remove these people.

Focus on surrounding yourself with people who talk positively about you and encourage you to do the same.

For more information or a course on confidence and positive self-talk, please call us on 075903 95089, or email: contact@outsidetheboxeducation.co.uk and we will be happy to help.

Most parents have, at one time or another, observed their young child interchanging letters as they read or reversing a number or a letter as they learn to write. You may have even asked yourself, “Does my child have dyslexia?” Fortunately, for most parents this isolated behaviour, especially in young children, is not sufficient evidence of dyslexia. Dyslexia is a brain-based disorder in which an individual has unexpected difficulty reading words accurately. In other words, children with dyslexia have difficulty matching letters and groups of letters (graphemes) with their corresponding sounds (phonemes). For example, a child with dyslexia may read a word like “bake” and say “back,” or may spell the word “baked” as “bakd.” Grapheme/phoneme correspondence that is unexpected for a child’s age and grade is at the root of dyslexia, and can translate to more complex problems with reading, including slow and/or laboured reading, trouble understanding longer passages, and poor spelling. So, while letter reversals can show up in dyslexia, it is actually a much more complex topic than many would think.

Dyslexia is a developmental, neurobiological disorder. In other words, scientists have discovered subtle differences in the brain’s architecture between children with dyslexia and those without it. The good news is that children with dyslexia usually respond well to structured, intensive remediation, and the brain responds to intervention by following suit. When a child learns to read well, the brain actually develops stronger connections to the parts of the brain responsible for visualizing words, saying words silently in one’s head, and thinking about their meaning.

Although dyslexia is found in children with or without other developmental disorders, and among children of varied intellectual abilities, there are some disorders with which dyslexia is most commonly found. It is common for children with early speech and articulation issues to struggle with reading. In fact, the same systems in the brain that work together to produce language also work together when a child reads. Dyslexia is also commonly found in children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). If you think about it, it makes sense. Children who have difficulty with concentration have a harder time focusing on reading sentences and longer passages. They find reading frustrating and have less practice reading overall, \in comparison to their peers without ADHD.

Assessment

If your child is having difficulty sounding out words, reading slowly, spelling, or is having trouble answering questions about stories they have just read, they may benefit from an educational assessment. You may want to discuss these issues with your child’s teacher and/or resource specialist who may suggest monitoring your child’s progress with brief, periodic testing. The standard of care involves using tests with information about your child’s placement according to their age and grade to monitor their progress. If, despite appropriate instruction, your child continues to struggle and fall behind in reading, a school psychologist may recommend an Individualized Educational Program (IEP), where specific targets for intervention are identified.

In some instances, an assessment with a broader scope by a community practitioner is appropriate. If a child does not have reading abilities that differ significantly from their overall cognitive abilities, children may be denied more intensive reading intervention in the school setting. In some instances, children and adolescents who are very bright have worked extremely hard to learn how to decode new words but may still read slowly or have a hard time with comprehension. When a school-based assessment leaves unanswered questions, an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) conducted by a community-based provider may be appropriate. Additionally, if you are concerned that your child may have another disorder that is not assessed in a typical educational setting, such as ADHD, or if you are concerned that your child has a medical history that could be contributing to their overall brain functioning, a neuropsychological evaluation by a licensed clinical psychologist with specialty training in paediatric neuropsychology is recommended.

Intervention

There are some strategies that parents can utilize at home to help strengthen their child’s reading skills. One of the most important things is to help build a child’s phonological awareness (i.e., strengthen a child’s ability to sound out groups of letters). Explicit instruction in phonics is critical, as whole-word or naturalistic approaches are not as effective for struggling readers. In order to improve reading fluency, the ability to read words quickly and efficiently, We suggest using flash-card techniques that improve “sight word” reading. In other words, as long as the child understands the rules for sounding out certain words, the focus can shift to improving your child’s ability to recognize words quickly without having to sound them out. We typically recommend that parents provide their children with a variety of high-interest books at or below their reading level. The idea is to make reading fun and increase a child’s exposure to texts. Allow plenty of time for leisurely reading without the stress of intervention.

Teaching reading skills can, and often does, create tension between a well-meaning parent and a frustrated child. In those instances, it may be beneficial to have an educational therapist provide additional instruction in the home and/or help with homework completion.

For more information and support with individual lessons please call us on 075903 95089 or email contact@outsidetheboxeducation.co.uk.

As children, we experience the world without a filter. We’re free to approach life without prejudices, or opinions, as we encounter everything for the first time.

But as we grow older, we begin to develop beliefs that form structure within our lives.

Some of these beliefs are useful – they stop us from saying something inappropriate during a meeting, or from crossing the road without looking either way – however, many of the beliefs we develop over the years are self-imposed restrictions that can have a negative impact on the quality of our lives.

We call these limiting beliefs.

What are limiting beliefs?

Limiting beliefs are beliefs that keep us from being able to renew ourselves or grow.

We all have ideals, and we all fall short of our ideals from time to time, but a limiting belief tells us that we will never achieve our ideals or our potential. We must have faith that we can achieve what we want to achieve, however big that achievement seems to be.

On the other hand, we can also be ruined by imagining that facts are not what they are. So, to believe that a fact is not a fact, is also a limiting belief because it prevents us from dealing with the actual situation that we need to deal with, in order to achieve what we want.

Therefore, we are always having faith in our ideals while at the same time facing the facts that stand between where we currently are and where we ideally want to be.

If you cannot hold this paradox as you grow you will likely not succeed and fall into false, limiting beliefs.

One common manifestation of this limiting belief is that “I must do one thing or another,” when, in fact, it may be possible to do “one thing and another.”

For example, you may have a passion for teaching wellness, but there is always more to know about wellness since the world of healing and wellness is an infinite body of knowledge that would take many lifetimes to master and exhaust.

One response to this might be to think that you don’t know enough to start, therefore you feel like an imposter.

The limiting belief here is that you must know everything about wellness in order to start teaching it, otherwise, you’ll be an imposter. This thought is a kind of perfectionism that will cause you never to start because you can never know everything about wellness.

Instead, you might consider that you can teach wellness and not know everything about it, without being an imposter.

By embracing the fact that wellness is an infinite body of knowledge that no one can master in a lifetime you can start without first having to have perfect knowledge of wellness.

Perfection is, oddly, more often than not, a limiting belief. And yet—you must know something to start. You have to face the facts and do the work, enough, at least, to start. And how much is enough is what’s determined by society and what society says is enough.

Perhaps you need to take some classes, become an expert, get a license, work as an intern, apprentice, or study something.

So, in such a case you’d take your cues from society as well as your own standards—what’s enough for you to be able to start, though not necessarily perfectly.

Thus, you can see that to start, you have to be willing to be imperfect and not imperfect at the same time!

How to overcome limiting beliefs

In general, you can figure out a good way to live by thinking about three concepts:

1. What you’re passionate about.
2. What you can be the best in the world at.
3. How can you make money in a way that supports what you’re passionate about and what you’re the best in the world at, or vice-versa: how can you use what you’re passionate about and the best in the world at to make money?

This sounds easy, but it’s not always so simple.

One of the best ways that I’ve found to accomplish this goal is by working with a good teacher or coach—someone who holds you accountable to your own high standards, who doesn’t let you ignore the facts while at the same time helping you to cultivate and nourish your vision for success.

How to remove limiting beliefs

With enough sincerity, passion, honesty, and internal motivation, you can completely eliminate your limiting beliefs and become the person you are destined to be.

The best way to destroy a limiting belief is through action.

By beginning to ask yourself difficult questions, focusing on creating alternative beliefs, and truly putting your beliefs to the test you can begin to overcome the beliefs you’ve imposed on yourself.

Limiting beliefs develop and thrive with inaction—if you do not act, you are only proving that you are stopped by some hidden, limiting beliefs.

With simple steps, it’s possible to destroy any limiting beliefs in a moment with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Believe in yourself, take action and success will happen!

For more information and a course on how to identify your limiting beliefs and how to overcome them, email us: contact@outsidetheboxeducation.co.uk or call 05903 95089.

Today, the 19th of November 2021 is BBC Children in Need day.

It is important to remember that for many reasons children and their families need help, support, and advice for many reasons.

• It may be to support children and families with physical disabilities, sensory impairments, learning difficulties and/or complex needs
• Young carers – Children who have care responsibilities for parents, a sibling, or other relatives
• Children who are dealing with a bereavement
• Mental Health support
• Asylum seekers
• Care leavers
• Children who are homeless
• Children who have a parent in hospital or prison
• Children who are taken into care

1. Let children and young people know they can communicate with you

By letting a child or young children know they can speak to you about anything, it reassures them that when they are ready, they can speak to you, and they will be believed and not judged. If a child uses a different method of communication i.e., sign language, Makaton, pictures/symbols/objects, or English is not their first language, additional support can be gained to aid communication. If they do not feel ready to speak, or would like to speak to someone else, this is OK too.

2. Let children and young people know that they will be listened to, and believed

When children and young people tell us something, listen without being judgemental and believe them. It can take time and courage to for a child or young people to tell us what is bothering them. Do not rush them or ask them to tell you more than they are comfortable with.

3. Make sure the environment is right

Sometimes children or young people may or may not feel comfortable speaking about something at home or at school, as it may be too busy, loud, or upsetting to have the conversation in a particular environment. Perhaps find somewhere quiet or where the child or young person feels comfortable to speak or even go for a walk.

4. Take time to understand what is being said

Make sure that we understand the information that is being given to us. Do not add things that have not been said. If we need to clarify what we have heard, reflect the question back by saying ‘I understand that what you told me/us is……, did I/we understand you correctly?’

5. Stay calm

Sometimes, it can be difficult to stay calm. Particularly when the news is upsetting or hard to comprehend. But it is vital that this happens otherwise the child or young person may not feel able to continue or speak to us about other situations in the future.

6. Find other ways to communicate

If a child or young person would rather write a letter, or send us texts, or draw pictures these can help too.