2019 Happy New Year ! So here we are again at the start of another new year wondering if we will reach our goals. In our enthusiasm to make positive changes it can be easy to overlook the fact that any change involves a process; change is rarely an event. All success, whether […]
Over the years I have seen many clients with social anxiety and have witnessed how miserable it has made them. Social anxiety is an intense fear of being negatively judged or even rejected by others. Suffers often cope by avoiding certain situations, sometimes for years and yet whilst any avoidance strategy may bring relief, […]
Black Friday is here again with the temptation of huge discounts on a whole range of items. Online shopping makes it so easy to spend and to overspend from the comfort of our warm and dry homes. The thrill of a bargain is tempting for us all and we can all easily […]
January 2019 is just around the corner and yet with the distraction of Christmas it’s easy to forget about making a change until January 1st has come . . . and gone! Change is a process, not an event and like all processes needs a degree of planning. Di Clemente & Prochaska (1998) identified 5 […]
The age of technology with smart phones etc has speeded up much of our day to day lives; we can now communicate with immediacy thanks to messaging and emails, we can shop without cash and can pay for our shopping with contactless cards. Life has never been faster and yet this increased pace of life […]
We all talk to ourselves. Often the talk is silent and internal. Often our self talk is made from the same thoughts that we had yesterday and that we will have tomorrow. Often we don’t even notice our self talk but we ignore it at our peril because the thoughts in our self-talk create feelings […]
The days are beginning to shorten and soon we’ll be turning the clocks back. In primitive times we would retreat to our caves to escape the harsh winter storms and shortened days which meant we had less time to hunt. In many respects we do the same even in the modern world with the cosy […]
The need for growth allows us to learn new skills and to fulfill our potential. Without fulfilling this need some of us can feel as if our lives have stagnated or have reached a place where we feel bored with everything. We don’t need to make huge changes in life to […]
Our need to connect and to feel loved is extremely powerful. In primitive times being accepted as part of your tribe meant safety in a world that was unpredictable and potentially hostile. Today humans continue to need to feel accepted by their tribe however, unlike primitive times, today we belong to more than one tribe. […]
To feel significant or important is a need which everybody has. Just as with our other needs, we can satisfy the need to feel important through either positive or negative actions and behaviours. Positive significance can be achieved through our accomplishments in our education, career and relationships; these require consistent hard work and perseverance and […]