How breakthrough negative cycle

Do you often feel things are not going your way?  Do you feel negative all the time but crap just keeps happening to you and you just can’t help it?

When I was figuring out my career, my friend suggested I should look into coaching. She thought it aligned with what I was looking for.  The first thought I had was ‘Hell no! Coaches are obnoxiously positive. I can never be THAT positive.’. Boy, was I wrong. 

Coaches are not obnoxiously positive.  They just don’t stay in the negative. 

For most of my life, when something bad happened, I played the victim.  ‘Urgh, why do bad things keep happening to me?’  I worried. I overanalyzed until I spiral. I realized very quickly during my coach training that I was habitually playing the victim. I never had someone challenge or interrupt my thoughts.  The most I’ve got was from my mom who often said to me when I was a teenager ‘You have a bad attitude. Change it.’. Yet I was not given the tools to change my attitude. I wasn’t taught my thoughts dictated my reactions, which then turned similar situations into the same outcome.  I would say “SEE! I told you that would happen!”. When we are shown the same outcome over and over again, it is hard to be positive and think or feel differently. . 

When I went into coaching, I discovered I was the one who created the same outcome and I can create different outcomes. Here’s a diagram to help demonstrate how our past experiences create the same end results.  

Our past experiences are created by our past results. The past experiences trigger a thought then leads to a feeling and then creates an action then creates the result. If we continue to let our past experiences drive our thoughts and feelings, it will continuously create the same outcome.  

To disrupt this pattern, we need to go backwards. Think of the desired outcome you wish to have. What action do you need to create that outcome? What feeling do you need to support you with the action? What thought do you need to trigger that feeling? Just by doing this, you have disrupted your pattern. 

I’m not saying doing this once will give you your desired results.  This can also flop. And you will be disappointed. And you should! But only for a short period of time because how does lamenting over the failed results help the situation?  It doesn’t. Give yourself a set time to be negative. To feel sorry for yourself. Once that time period is up, analyze the situation and see what could be done differently and try that the next time. 

When you are finally able to create the desired result, that will become your new past experience. And when you do it enough times, that will become your norm and won’t need to go backwards to disrupt your pattern anymore. 

What do you have to lose by trying something different if what you’ve been doing hasn’t yielded the desired results? 

Let’s schedule a call and chat about what you’d like to do to turn that negative around.