FreelanceCoach Blog

As easy as it is to be de-motivated, it is that difficult to find self motivation. Actually, motivation needs to come from within so that we can handle the many challenges that life poses. Motivation is one of the important ingredients of success. Whether you are an athlete or an entrepreneur, motivation is the foundation on which you can build your dreams.

In order to understand how you can self motivate; you need to first understand what motivation is and how it exists. Motivation comprises of three elements, which are:

Creative Freedom: This will help you to fulfill your dreams and aspirations. Creative freedom is used to come up with ideas, make future projections and form goals.

Learning from Failure: Failure is not just connected with our professional life but also our personal life. It is not the failure that is important; it is what you learn from your failure that is important. You need to learn to overcome your barriers and bounce back.

Continuous Learning: Learning is a continuous process. Many people feel that what we have learned in school and college is true learning but that is not the case. Learning happens consciously and subconsciously. There are different types of learning like learning from mistakes, from the environment, about nature, about people, about society etc. The more you learn, the stronger you will become. Low income employees can become easily de-motivated vis-à-vis high income employees according to a survey. Low income employees fall under the less than $24,000 per year category.

The Right Attitude For Self Motivation

Why is lack of motivation prevalent in the lives of people? Where does it come from? According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the average person’s life cycle at this point can be segregated into categories based on time spent. On an average, a person spends 38% of their time in sleeping and personal care, 19% in work and work related activities, 17% watching television, 11% is used in domestic activities, 6% in eating and family time, 2% in recreation and only 1% in personal growth. So basically there is no time for one’s own self and hence a lack of motivation!

Let’s face the truth: everything around us and the world that we live in is working in a way that is highly de-motivating. Whether it is low wages and poor working environment or health and other personal issues, it is easy to be de-motivated. So how is it possible to find motivation?

An article in Forbes states that when employees are happy they are 180% more energized, 155% content with their job responsibilities, 150% happier, 108% more engaged in the organization, and 50% more motivated. When employees are happy and motivated, their productivity increases by 50%.

The secret of self motivation lies in practicing and maintaining the right attitude. Take responsibility of your attitude. The right and positive attitude can make a lot of difference. You need to practice positive attitude. This can be achieved through meditation and yoga exercise, which help in releasing all the negative energy. When the negative energy is removed, you will be left with positive energy, which will uplift your mood and attitude and help improve self motivation.

Warm regards,

FreelanceCoach Team

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Self efficacy can be described in the words of Albert Bandura, "The belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required managing prospective situations." Basically, this means that self-efficacy is your belief in your ability to achieve success in a specific situation. These beliefs according to Bandura are determinants of how you think, feel, and behave. According to a research conducted by Bandura (1995, 1997), efficacy beliefs can influence people to think strategically or erratically, pessimistically or optimistically.

Every human being should possess a strong sense of self efficacy as it is conducive to attainment of personal goal and well being. It is also known to be a strong predictor of health and behavioral change. One of the important things to understand is that self efficacy is different from self esteem. Self esteem propagates the judgment of self worth like, "I am a good man or I am a terrible performer ". Self efficacy propagates the judgment of personal abilities or capabilities like "I can jump 2.8m or I can finish this project in 5 days". You can have a high self esteem and low self efficacy or vice-versa.

The need for self-efficacy was explored in the field of mainstream education as it is considered to be an intermediary in academic achievement (Rosenholtz & Rosenholtz, 1981).

The Role of Self-Efficacy

A study by Schwarzer & Reinhard (1995) has revealed that people who display a high sense of self-efficacy are normally more confident about taking on challenging tasks. Some of the basic things that you can relate to include the ability to identify goals, what you would want to accomplish, how you want to accomplish, things that you would want to achieve, and things that you would want to change. However, achieving goals or wanting a change is not as simple as it sounds. This is where self-efficacy plays an all important role in how you approach your goals, challenges, and tasks. Let’s look at both sides of the coin – people with strong and weak self efficacy based on their reactions.

A study conducted by Wehrwein and Eddy (1993) revealed that self-efficacy is an important predictor of health promoting behaviors. If you had a strong sense of self-efficacy then you would:

• Take challenging problems head on and look for the appropriate solution
• Slowly develop interest in various activities that you participate in
• Project and show a strong sense of commitment to your tasks, goals, activities, and interests
• Be able to recover quickly from disappointments and setbacks

If you had a weak sense of self-efficacy then you would:

• Avoid any conflict and shirk away any responsibilities built around challenging tasks
• Believe that you lack the capabilities to handle difficult tasks and challenging situations
• Spend more time focusing on failures and negative results
• Lose confidence in your abilities at the slightest hint of failure or challenge

Warm regards,

FreelanceCoach Team

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Positive attitude is one of the most important keys to personality development. What is positive attitude? Well, it is all about facing difficulties with a firm attitude, seeing the positive side of everything. When you don’t get the promotion you deserved in office and yet you don’t let that hamper your performance is positive attitude. When the doctor tells you that you have been diagnosed with cancer and you still don’t lose your will to fight in life, that’s positive attitude. It exists in many forms and it doesn’t only have a healthy impact in your life only; it also has a positive impact on the lives of people connected to you. According to a research by Duke University Medical Center, positive attitude or outlook contributes to better heart health.

Where does positive attitude come from? It comes from optimism. It can be encapsulated through the fact that it helps in keeping you motivated even in worse case scenarios. It is all in the mind. When you are attacked by hordes of problems and challenging situations, there are two paths to choose from. You can choose to surround your life with negativity, lose focus of your goals, be depressed and unhappy, feel bitter, and blame others. The other path is to stand strong and take on the challenges one by one saying to yourself, “It can be done – I can do it”. That’s the essence of positive attitude!

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 37 million people in the US live below the National poverty line. This means that 1 in every 8 people are living in poverty. Poverty is another breeder of negative attitude. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment rate in March 2012 in the U.S, was 8.2 percent. Unemployment is one of the largest breeders of negative attitude.

Positive Attitude Can Help in Personality Development

Positive attitude has a healthy affect on the various traits of personality development. Let’s look at the various attributes in co-relation with positive attitude:

Ethics: One of the most important traits of personality development is ethics. There can be good ethics and bad ethics. Ethics come into play in our personal and professional sphere. There are situations that can put us in a state of conflict and stressors can be quite overwhelming. At this point there will be a lack of balance or stability in life. Are you ready to make a false statement to save your job or stand with truth? The only way you can stand with truth is by maintaining a positive attitude and it will show as an integral part of your personality.

Confidence: You might come face to face with situations that can shake your very confidence. Confidence can enhance your personality and lack of it can stagnate personality development. Confidence is all about faith or belief. How much faith do you have in your capabilities to handle a situation or do use your strengths or to manage a relationship? The faith you have in your ability can dwindle when a storm hits you but positive attitude will ensure faith remains in place.

Warm regards,

FreelanceCoach Team

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The world needs motivational coaching because we are all surrounded by stress, pain, sadness, failure, and much more. Whether it is a professional environment where you have faced failure in spite of putting 100 percent efforts or a relationship that seems to be breaking away even though you put your heart into it; in either situation, it is not easy to remain motivated. According to a survey by The Creative Group, approximately 30% of executives of various organizations in the U.S feel that motivating their employees and keeping them motivated is a tough challenge.

Motivational coaching is required where lack of motivation exists or persists. According to a research by eBullpen, 46% of newly hired employees resign from the organization in the first year itself. According to a report by Sirota Survey Intelligence, 33% of management executives in organizations feel that companies are not doing enough for the poor performers in the company.

Top 7 Tips of Motivational Coaching

There are several ways through which motivational coaching can help you to remain motivated in any given situation. Here are the top 7 tips offered by experts in motivational coaching:

1)      You need to first realize the importance of self-motivation and resilience and then identify the role it plays in your personal and professional life.

2)      Reduce the de-motivators in your life. De-motivators include negative people, impractical and irrelevant tasks, unachievable goals, de-energizers, etc.  

3)      You need to exercise control over your emotions. Emotions can lead to denial. Emotions can also transform a small problem into something larger than life.

4)      Learn to adapt to your current work or personal environment and changing environments in the near future. Ability to adapt is at the heart of motivational coaching as it helps you remain motivated by making your believe that you can handle any situation in any environment.

5)      Practice more control of your inner thoughts as well as belief systems. This will help you to alter your beliefs and thoughts into pleasant experiences even when you are amidst volatile or challenging situations.

6)      Stop passing the blame! One of the biggest de-motivators is passing the blame on someone else. It’s time for you to learn to accept the blame and take full ownership for your failures. This will help you to focus better on your next objective or goal. When you accept mistakes, you are in a better position to identify what really went wrong. Being able to correct your actions is an important teaching of motivational coaching.

7)      Learn to apply positive psychology principles in every sphere of your life. These principles will help you to maintain a positive attitude, which in itself is a motivator. When you are brimming with positive attitude, you can take on any challenge and use your abilities for maximum benefit. Through motivational coaching you can gain positive attitude and achieve all your dreams and aspirations!

Warm regards,

FreelanceCoach Team

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Self confidence is like a boat that will take you closer to your goal. It is an attribute that lies within the realms of our mind and all we need is awaken it. Being human makes us fallible, we often become victims of pain, anxiety, and stress. These are the negative attributes that create doubt and we end up with an inferiority complex. It clouds our positive attributes like confidence and esteem. Lack of self confidence has been linked to drug dependency, violent behavior, and suicidal tendency. A survey by The World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed that suicide caused by depression leads to more deaths across the world than war. In fact, according to a WHO report, suicide rates across the world have increased by 60 percent in the last 45 years.

But then the question arises how to achieve self confidence.

Achieving Self Confidence

According to a report by Dr Joe Rubino, nearly 85% of the world's population is suffering from low self confidence. The first step toward achieving self confidence begins with belief. According to a report by Alexandra Delis-Abrams, Ph.D., almost 50 million Americans every year suffer from mental disorders, varying from eating disorders to depression. Depression is caused by low self confidence and 15% of depressed women in the USA have attempted suicide.

The question is how can you achieve self confidence and bring in a positive change? You need to start by changing the negative opinion you have of yourself. Your opinion about the self is based on the interpretations of the following:

• Your current job
• Your job responsibilities
• Your value as a person
• How you perceive others see you
• Your place in other people’s lives
• Your place in the world
• The purpose of your life
• Your strengths and weaknesses
• Your independence
• Your social status

All of the above help in forming an opinion. The more positive opinion you form, the more it will help boost your self confidence. There are two more important aspects that can help you in improving self confidence and they are:

Limitations: One of the important aspects is accepting our limitations. We all have strengths and weaknesses but accepting the weaknesses and working on it to transform ourselves is often a long journey. Most people try and avoid this journey because people believe that accepting weakness is accepting defeat. However, the truth is that only when you accept your weakness can you bring in positive change.

Short-term goals: One of the best ways to boost your self confidence is by giving yourself short-term goals and achieving them. The time target for your goals should not exceed a month and you can even search for weekly goals. Each time, you achieve a goal within the specified time span; it will help boost your confidence.

Warm regards,

FreelanceCoach Team

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The essence of life coaching lies in healing you from the inside so that you can focus on specific areas of your life better. These areas could vary from your relationships to your work and career and from your family life to personal development and health.

There are certain points in our life where we feel that we are unable to identify our goals or where we feel helpless in a particular situation. There are times when we give up on our dreams and then there are times when poor health makes us loose our direction in life. We all go through such situation and sometimes we can deal with it and at other times we cannot. It is those situations that we are unable to deal with is where life coaching comes into practice. 

There are 7 aspects that life coaching focuses on and helps us to thus strengthen ourselves in each of these aspects. They are:

1)      Focus: This is the primary aspect. With the help of life coaching you can learn to focus on your goals, objectives, or situations. It will help you not only set time out for each priority in your life but also assist you in taking them head-on.

2)      Direction:  Once you have the focus, you need the right direction. Without a direction, you will be unable to reach your objectives. Life coaching will help you to create plans and strategies to be followed and thus achieve your objectives.

3)      Stress and Energy: One of the major reasons for lack of focus or direction in life is lack of energy, which rises from the high amount of stress. Life coaching is a process by which you will learn to reduce your stress and harness your positive energy.

4)      Confidence: Lack of confidence is one of the greatest issues that people of different ages are facing today. It is important to have self belief and confidence and this is exactly what you will learn through life coaching.

5)      Positivity: It is very easy to move from a positive frame of mind to negative and negativity surrounds all of us whether at work or home.  Life coaching enables understanding and accepting the positivity in us and around us as this will play an important role in your success.

6)      Balance in life: When nothing is working well, we lose our balance in life. Through this type of coaching, you can not only regain your balance but also move forth towards a brighter future.

7)      Growth and Success: Growth and success are inter-related but there are times when growth doesn’t bring success. This happens when you are stuck in a specific mindset. Changing the mindset keeping in mind future success and focusing your mind towards exploring new ideas and possibilities is what life coaching preaches.

Warm regards,

FreelanceCoach Team

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“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” - Norman Vincent Peale

This is what self-esteem is all about but more often than not, we suffer from lack of self-esteem and that is where all our woes in life begin. It all begins in the mind and it remains in the mind for as long as we want and this does more bad than good.

Low self-esteem grows like a creeper within your mind and normally arises from anxiety, depression, psychosis, phobia, delusional thinking, and even disability or an illness. Lack of self-esteem can lead to occurrence of several issues right from stagnant career growth to losing interest in life and relationships.

Is there a way to grow self-esteem or improve it?

Ways to Improve Self Esteem

The best way to improve your self-esteem is by always feeling good about your own self. Yes! It sounds difficult but you need to give it a try! When you try, wonderful things can happen and this is the valuable lesson that is imparted through life coaching.

Life coaching focuses on what is called confidence coaching. It is a step by step process where you will learn the following:

• To feel comfortable while facing or tackling new challenges at work or in life
• Learn to be at ease in a social environment like an event or a communion
• Feel excited when new opportunities knock your door
• Every accomplishment will translate into a greater sense of achievement
• Confidently go about implementing your creative ideas and innovative thinking
• To respect others and be respected in return
• To be completely sure of what you really want and how you can achieve it

These are some of the benefits that you will enjoy through life coaching.  The question still remains: how can you improve your self-esteem and achieve the above?

It is fairly simple! Start with a positive mental attitude!

Positive attitude can kill any negative thoughts. Positive attitude can make you appreciate your own self and help you to bask in sunshine. Positive attitude is something that you need to practice as Rome was not built in a day! You need to keep telling yourself that you are no lesser than anyone. When you start believing in yourself, a positive mental attitude will take shape. When your mind is positive and proactive, your body will follow suit. Miracles do happen; you just need to keep the faith!

Warm regards,

FreelanceCoach Team

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"The most important thing that I learned through life coaching was how my lack of self-confidence was taking away the glow from my life and hampering personal self-development” Sally Newton.

There are many more people like Sally who are facing their demons day in and day out. There are many Sally’s for whom living with their demons is the only choice and there are some who have succumbed to their demons. The demons are nothing more than the manifestations of your own personality that hampers proper personal self-development.

The question is how can you really instill self-development and enhance your personality? This is where life coaching comes to assistance. In order to identify how this type of coaching can help you, it is important to understand is what self-development really is.

Understanding Personal Self Development

Personal development relates to increasing self-awareness. When you are aware of your inner self and your strengths and weaknesses; you will be in a better position to command them. We are all a victim of our weaknesses and often our weakness overpowers our strengths. In such a situation life will always seem to roll downwards. There is nothing abnormal about this and most of us go through such a situation at least once in our life.

What life coaching does is that it teaches us to draw out our strength and harness it properly. This will ensure that our strengths overpower our weaknesses. When strengths are dominating, there will be an automatic increase in self-confidence. 

Ways of Achieving Personal Self Development

There are mainly 3 ways of achieving personal self-development through life coaching. They are:

Setting a Goal: Self-development starts with recognizing your true potential and how to judge your potential? This can be done only by testing your potential. To start with, life coaching will teach you to formulate a goal, aim at the goal, and achieve it. The goals initially will be smaller and achievable. As your keep achieving one goal after another, you will be able to judge your potential and understand your strengths. At the end of the day, you will be more self-confident and self-reliant!

Positive Outlook: Creating a positive outlook is easy but keeping it can be that difficult. Most often, a small defeat or stress can put a dent on our positive outlook. Where do we begin? Life coaching will help you to maintain constant positive outlook even when life seems to be moving in the wrong direction. Positive outlook plays an important role in controlling the mind and the more positive you are, the better equipped your mind will be to take on any challenge.

Evaluate your decisions: Last but not the least is evaluating your decisions. The process of evaluation will help you to determine where you went wrong or what needs to be improved. The process of life coaching process will help you to understand where and what you lack and how you can strengthen it so that overall personal self-development can take place.

Warm regards,

FreelanceCoach Team

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Several of the most common problems life coaches are called in to deal with have to do with energy.  Many people who feel like they are burning the candle at both ends just to get everything done are looking for ways to boost their energy so that they can get more done.  So how do you increase the amount of energy you have available?  Here are seven tips to help you out.

• Kick the caffeine habit.  It can be tempting to rely on stimulants like sugar and caffeine for energy, but this actually does just the opposite.  It may give you a very temporary boost, but you’ll just come crashing down later.  Instead of turning to sugar or caffeine, use the rest of these tips.
• Get moving.  A walk around the block will work wonders on your energy level.  Just like with money,  you have to spend some to make some.  Spending energy on taking a walk or doing some other type of exercise will boost your energy naturally rather than through the use of stimulants like caffeine or sugar.
• Eat a balanced diet.  A diet that is nutrient poor will not give you the energy you need.  There’s a good reason our bodies need healthy nutrients.  It’s to keep us going over the long term.  So the next time you’re thinking about grabbing some cookies or chips, trade it out with celery sticks or some other healthy alternative.
• Take a power nap.  Sometimes you just need a 15 or 20 minute rest in order to get your energy back.  Everyone has different sleep patterns, so some people may find it helpful to get up a little bit earlier in the morning and then take a power nap sometime during the day.  Just make sure that you don’t nap so long that it interrupts your natural sleep rhythms. 
• Drink plenty of water.  Dehydration robs your body of energy quickly, so it’s important to keep the water levels in your body up.  Weakness can actually be caused by dehydration, so keep a bottle of water handy at all times. 
• Stop skipping meals.  There is no meal you can afford to skip during the day.  Breakfast is the most important meal because it gets your metabolism going and gives you the energy you need to make it to lunch time.  However, you can’t afford to skip lunch either.  If you can’t step away from your work station for a full meal, opt for a few smaller meals or healthy snacks that you can take at your desk instead.
• Get stress under control.  Living under stress wreaks havoc on every system of your body.  It can rob you of the precious energy you need just to make it through the day.  Work with a life coach on stress management skills and get those difficult situations under control. 

If you’re still wondering how you’re going to get everything done, it’s probably time to hire a life coach.  There are coaches for every need, from stress management to career coaching.  They will get your life back on track and help you find the energy to do everything you want to do.  After all, the more energy you have, the more you’ll be able to get done.  You’ll become one of those people who always hears things like, “I don’t know how you do it all.” 

Wishing all the Best,

FreelanceCoach Team

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When most people set out to find a life coach, they have no idea where to start.  They may have a general idea that they need a coach to help them get back on track, but their idea stops there.  They have no idea that there are many different kinds of coaches.  But effective coaching is all about discovering what works, and the very first thing you’ve got to do in order to begin a successful journey with any coach is identify the type of coach you need.

First it’s helpful to understand some of the most common types of coaches, and this list is by no means exhaustive:

• Business coaches – perfect for small business owners or anyone who wants to succeed in the business world.
• Sales coaches – will help you get your sales numbers up or improve your sales team as a whole.
• Career coaches – for those who are on the search for a new career or need guidance in their current career.
• Wellness coaches – devise exercise and nutrition plan and helps you learn how to make healthier choices.
• Team coaches – develop teams and help them learn how to work together better.
• Life coaches – helpful in general aspects of life.

As you can see, there are different kinds of coaches for different kinds of challenges, and this list certainly doesn’t even cover all of them.  In order to determine what type of coach you need, just start by making a list of all the issues you need to work on.  Often you will begin to see a pattern emerge.  Perhaps all of your issues are job-related, or maybe you’re simply a business owner looking for a better way to motivate your team.  Whatever the reason you have for seeking a life coach, this is the place it comes into play.  If there are many issues that seem to be spread across all facets of life, a general life coach may be the right choice.  If so, you should look for someone with a wide range of experience working on various problems with clients. 

Another aspect of finding the right type of coach involves coaching style.  Just as no two people face exactly the same challenges, no two coaches are the same.  Within each type of coaching, you will find wide variances in style.  The best thing you can do to figure out which type of coaching style will work best for you is to screen several coaches whose services fall within the category of coach you are looking for.  Ask for a free discovery session with two or three coaches you think you might be able to work with and go from there.  After meeting with a couple of coaches, it will become clear what type of coaching style you need in order to find success.

Effective coaching always starts with the right type of coach—someone who is both qualified to help you work on the specific issues you are facing and also whose style meshes with your personality.  The right coach is out there; find yours now!

Wishing all the Best,

FreelanceCoach Team

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