by Janelle Legge | Jun 8, 2017 | Advanced Communication Skills |
Good communication skills are vital to feeling competent and effective at work. Often though you don’t get the support you need to improve your communication skills until you start to repeatedly hit some invisible barriers to getting your thinking and ideas across effectively in meetings and situations where it really counts. It’s something that a lot of people can struggle with, particularly early on in their career, until they learn how to improve their default communication style.
Here’s a common workplace scenario when you haven’t honed your communication skills:
You’re in a meeting and everyone’s talking about a particular issue and it’s now your turn to contribute. You start talking, but it’s as if they haven’t heard a thing that you’ve said. So you sit there feeling ignored, dismissed and devalued. A few minutes later you try again. But now you’re feeling frustrated and a bit anxious and use far too many words, over-explaining. Confusing yourself and everyone else. Eventually you lose your train of thought because no one’s responding in a positive way and someone else starts talking over you.
Is this something you’ve experienced? If it is, then you know how frustrating it can be. Particularly when your ideas are ignored and someone else says exactly the same thing, but in a different way and everyone takes their ideas on board. It’s one of those “WT# just happened then?” type moments – until you become aware of what’s going on and how to fix it.
If you’re finding people tune out and don’t engage with you the way you want, below are 4 effective ways you can improve your communication skills so that you’re able to get your ideas across more effectively and with greater impact:
# 1 Listen First
This is Communication Skills 101. Often when you’re not being heard, it’s because you’re not first taking the time to listen closely to what others are saying. Seek first to understand before trying to be understood. Take the time to tap into other people’s agendas, priorities and what’s most important to them first, before putting forward your ideas or solutions. Each time you find yourself jumping ahead in your mind or tuning off, pull your focus back to listening fully to what the other person is saying. Stay present.
# 2 Make It Simple
Being able to make the complex simple is a highly valued and sought after skill in business today. Take time before a meeting to organize your thinking and ground yourself. Stick to an executive summary, plain English style of communication where you can quickly cut to the chase and get your key points across.
#3 Pause
Learn the power of the pause. Get comfortable with the silence and spaces in between what’s being said. Pausing for a few seconds after you make each point adds more emphasis to what you’re saying. It also gives people time to take in your ideas, digest them and then respond. Start with pausing for just a few seconds at first, which will probably feel like minutes. Then build up from there.
# 4 Read The Non-Verbals
Often when there’s a communication disconnect it’s because you haven’t correctly read the vibe of the group or the political power plays. I’ve heard so many technically brilliant people say that they’re just not interested in playing politics in the workplace. This can be dangerous and potentially derail your career. To succeed and look after yourself in any kind of group you have to be savvy to what’s going on and know how to navigate through these more invisible terrains. You need to learn how to read what’s going on in the room and how to respond.
Taking time to learn more effective communication skills pays off in all areas of your life. Because if you’re having communication issues at work, then it’s highly likely you’re also having them at home and in other areas of your life.
by Janelle Legge | Apr 2, 2017 | Anxiety |
Helping clients learn how to manage stress and anxiety naturally has been a core part of my business for over 17 years. I’ve been able to successfully help a lot of people blast through debilitating stress, anxiety and panic attacks using natural approaches. Giving them effective self-management steps and relevant insights that empower them for the rest of their lives.
So many people that I see that have been feeling stressed and anxious for years eventually end up with adrenal fatigue, physical, mental, and emotional burn-out. Or symptoms related to what used to be labelled chronic fatigue. A huge contributing factor to burning out and compromising your immune system is not being grounded and fully in your body. This scatters your vital energy all over the place and depletes you mentally, emotionally and physically.
Not being in your body and grounded often comes from growing up around an anxious parent, or in stressful, chaotic environments where you’ve been wired to be vigilant and outer-oriented in order to survive.
When being centred and grounded isn’t modelled to you growing up, you tend to over-think things. You also tend to not trust your heart’s wisdom and gut-instincts. Taking on too much and constantly putting restorative self-care on the back burner can become your default program for how you do life.
Stress is a natural part of life and something we all have to deal with at various times. It’s when you don’t know how to step out of over-thinking and over-doing to slow down and regroup that you start to pay a price. When this goes on for years it usually leads to burn-out and a vulnerable nervous system.
You can stop this from happening to you by getting in touch with your body’s wisdom. When you learn how to turn down the noise and distractions, you’re also able to tune into your intuition and inner-guidance.
How to Manage Stress and Anxiety Naturally: 3 Simple Steps
Image by Daniel Santalla
# 1 Exercise Mindfully
Activities like yoga, pilates, Qi Gong, or tai chi are perfect for getting you out of constant mind chatter and into your deeper being, and connected to the earth. It just takes one class to feel more relaxed, grounded, and less ‘mind-chatter dominant’. Whilst going to the gym is physical and great exercise, I don’t usually recommend it for grounding and mindfulness.
# 2 Connect with Nature
Spending regular time out in nature is incredibly therapeutic and grounding. Whether that be regular walks in the park, by the ocean, or out bushwalking. It’s a great way to switch off from repetitive stressful thinking, connect with the natural and grounding beauty on our planet – and breathe more deeply and mindfully.
# 3 Relax Deeply
Massage and therapeutic body work are great for pulling you out of your worry-mind. Physical therapies help you mindfully and deeply relax into your whole being. They are a powerful way to switch off and release thoughts and feelings that just don’t serve you, making you feel more centred, calm, and grounded.
Avoid the common trap of anxious over-thinking and overdoing that comes from not being fully grounded. It’s about having daily and weekly regimes in place so that you know how to manage stress and anxiety when it arises. Commit to grounding yourself and your energy on a regular basis. Do this and your nervous system and adrenals will benefit enormously. You’ll also start to enjoy longer stretches of stress and anxiety free periods.
Knowing how to manage stress and anxiety naturally is becoming an increasingly essential life skill in today’s rapidly changing world.
Title image by Mali Maeder
by Janelle Legge | Mar 2, 2017 | Relationships |
Are you struggling to make sense of a toxic friend? Most of us have been through the toxic friendship dance at some stage in our lives.
It’s amazing how long we can tolerate a toxic friend when it’s someone that we’ve spent a lot of time with during our most formative years. But eventually toxic friendships approach an expiration date, usually when the other person finally pushes you over the edge in terms of what you’re prepared to tolerate. Forcing you to finally take a more objective look at what’s really going on.
This was the case for Kate* (not her real name) who recently came to see me to get some clarity on a long-term friendship that had totally soured.
KATE’S PROBLEM [Case Study]
Kate had known Lisa* (not her real name) for 25 years. They had met in high school and been friends ever since. As teenagers, Lisa had always been more outgoing and talkative than Kate. Having been through lots of experiences together growing up, in Kate’s eyes they would be friends for life.
But once Kate hit her 30s and became more successful and self-confident in her own right, she started to tire of the one-sided nature of their friendship. Lisa only called her when she needed to talk about some type of drama, or needed a favour.
Lisa would turn up and dump her emotional baggage all over Kate, leaving Kate feeling annoyed and exhausted for the next 24-48 hours. It felt as if all of Lisa’s anxiety and negativity had been shoved into her. Lisa said she felt better after their chats, but was oblivious to how this impacted Kate and no doubt other people in her life.
Whenever Kate tried to talk about her own issues, Lisa would immediately switch the focus back onto her and talk about when she had the exact same problem. Leaving Kate feeling ignored and invisible. Lisa would often minimize Kate’s feelings, yet expected Kate to listen patiently and empathically to her.
Kate’s husband had long been pointing out to her how drained and irritated she was whenever she spent time with Lisa. But Kate would just get defensive. Lisa finally pushed their friendship over the edge when she showed no interest in Kate’s recent win at work which had meant a lot to her. Instead of celebrating Kate’s big win, Kate felt on the receiving end of a jealous, negative vibe and just didn’t understand why. Kate finally decided to step back from the relationship.
WHY IT HAPPENS
When you’re attracted to someone who turns out to be toxic for you, it’s usually because you’re used to that treatment. The relationship dynamics resemble a familiar relationship from your past. Usually with one of your parents or a sibling.
It’s these types of people that initially are very magnetic and attractive to you. There’s a match in your unconscious to how you’re used to being treated by someone significant in your past. It’s like putting on an old pair of slippers, without realizing they are actually not a good fit for you.
With toxic friends there’s always an agenda on their part which often you just can’t see. Particularly when you’re younger. After years of tolerating their behaviours you slowly gain awareness, being drained, irritated and diminished after every encounter with them. The friendship becomes complex and messy when it shouldn’t be.
Kate had been avoiding having an honest conversation with Lisa about how she felt, because of the nostalgia of their teen years. It was as if she’d been under a spell, which in a way she had. What was Kate’s attraction to Lisa all those years ago? It turned out that Kate’s mother had always taken up most of the space at home. Her father worked long hours and was often away on business trips; increasingly her mother started dumping her emotional baggage onto Kate instead of seeking another adult to confide in. So Kate had become very adept at sitting patiently and listening to her mother go on about her issues and then offering her mother advice. Kate’s prescribed family role growing up was to be the good listener, care taker and problem solver. Yet she hadn’t seen the similarities in how she’d tolerated Lisa.
Kate was hoping that Lisa would eventually see her for who she really was and show genuine interest in her. This was never going to happen if they continued along the same path.
Inevitably, as with Kate and Lisa, cracks start to appear over time when you’re forced to become more self-aware because another person is emotionally draining and hurting you. But because you’re trying to sort things out in a closed thinking loop inside your head, it usually takes someone else to step in and point out the dysfunction to you. Until this occurs, you can remain blind-sided to the dismissive and disrespectful way they are treating you.
If you’ve grown up in an environment where there was no model of healthy respectful relationships, then it’s something you need to learn in your adult life. Otherwise, it can set you up for low self esteem, poor boundaries, and the inevitable confusion about how other people should be treating you. The sooner you can identify this, you will save years of giving your precious time, focus and energy to people who just don’t deserve it.
When Kate saw the similarities between how her own mother related to her and how she was being treated by Lisa, it broke a life-long hypnotic spell. She was free to step back and reassess how she was prepared to be treated by other people.
HOW TO CHANGE IT
If you’re in a toxic friendship the first thing you need to do is step back and stop engaging with them. Stop everything and give yourself some space. Whether that be physical space, taking a break from phone calls and / or unfriending them on social media.
If you’re unclear about what good personal boundaries even look like and how to go about change find someone who’s qualified to help you do this. Psychotherapy provides a safe space to build confidence and self-awareness and learn new relationship skills that quickly translate in the outside world.
#2 Know when to stay or when to move on.
This is not about being perfect or expecting your friends to be. We’ve all stuffed up in friendships at some stage in our lives. It’s part of being human. What we’re talking about here is being able to assess whether a friendship that’s gone toxic is redeemable or not. Do both of you have the capacity and self-awareness to handle the disruptions and necessary repairs that are part and parcel of human relationships? It’s knowing when to stay the distance, or when to cut the ties and move on.
#3 Let go of your need to be liked.
Whenever you decide to change and become more self-aware, the people closest to you often don’t like it at first. Because you’re no longer playing the role they have prescribed for you. Initially, they may get angry with you and try to pull you back into how they want you to be. That’s when you need to be consistent with setting new boundaries and let go of the old people pleasing version of you. Eventually they’ll get the message that they also need to re-adjust if they want a relationship with you.
The Outcome: Rebuilding The Friendship On New Terms
Photo by Lacie Slezak
When Kate finally stepped back and took a break from their friendship it really got Lisa’s attention. Kate finally told Lisa she just didn’t feel respected in the friendship… that it was always about her. Lisa’s initial reaction was anger and denial and then silence. She’d finally got the message loud and clear that she needed to change if she wanted to keep long-term friends in her life. Lisa also sought counselling and they are both slowly rebuilding their friendship on a more equal basis. Only time will tell whether their friendship can be repaired, but they are both willing to give it a go.
Most self-aware people know when they have stepped over the boundary in friendships. The problem lies with people who aren’t self-aware and don’t want to invest in their own personal growth.
Maybe you’re telling yourself you can’t make new friends after a certain age, so it’s best to keep the ones you already have. Even if they are hurting and draining you. This just isn’t true. Friendships can be made at any age. This faulty belief is stopping you from meeting new, healthier friends. As long as you’re invested in toxic, dissatisfying friendships, nothing new can come in. Because they are just so draining, distracting and time consuming.
Take Aways :
- When you decide you deserve better and get help in making the changes you most need it has a powerful ripple effect. The quality of all of your relationships, personally and professionally start to improve, changing all aspects of your life in positive ways.
- What we most remember about other people is how they make us feel. So pay attention to how those people make you feel. Do they make you feel good about yourself, valued, seen and heard? Or do you feel used? Test if you’re in a healthy or toxic relationship. If you’re finding this too hard to do, find someone who’s qualified to help. Because how you do one thing in life is how you do everything.
It’s always worth the effort sorting out what’s holding you back from having the life and relationships you want. The biggest turning point for anyone on the path to a bigger life and more success is asking for help and not trying to do everything on your own.
If you’re feeling drained and resentful because you’re in a toxic relationship and are ready to set some new ground rules, email me at support@janellelegge.com to book an appointment and we can start making the changes you most need.
*All identifying features, including names, have been changed in this case study to protect the privacy of my client.
A version of this article was featured in The Sydney Standard February edition.
Blog title image by Tamara Bellis
Tags: Competition among women, Courage to be yourself, How self-awareness leads to meaningful change, How to be more confident, How to make sense of toxic relationships, How to set personal boundaries, How to stop absorbing someone's emotional baggage, Lack of empathy, Narcissism, Parentified Child, Prescribed roles in families, Psychological blind spots, Toxic friends
by Janelle Legge | Jan 4, 2017 | Wellbeing |
It’s hard to stay motivated when you haven’t been investing in your wellbeing. Maybe you’ve experienced the inertia and lack-lustre approach to life that comes from neglecting your wellbeing? Just getting caught up in everyday life?
Your sense of self is shaped by your body and your most important relationships and experiences. It’s not just about your brain and changing your thinking.
Exercise / physical activity is a must-do to stay motivated, optimistic and focused on your goals.
Because when you stop investing in your own wellbeing, you often end up hitting invisible barriers and getting stuck. That’s when your fear of failure starts to set in. There’s a direct relationship between staying motivated and succeeding in life and the quality of your daily habits, your thinking, and your social environment.
Focusing on your wellbeing is a mindset and lifestyle choice. It’s about choosing to look after yourself in a more conscious and mindful way.
The good news is you can fix this easily.
3 Ways To Invest In Your Wellbeing And Stay Motivated
#1 Don’t Isolate Yourself
One of the quickest ways to step over your own thinking habits and stay motivated is to connect with creative, motivated people. They see things from multiple perspectives. They are people who are able to hold space for you, help you clarify your own thinking, and open up a whole new world of fresh, creative solutions and ideas. It is these conversations that have you walking away with a brand new take on things, feeling energized and optimistic about what’s possible for you. Investing in good quality relationships with people who want you to succeed is a sure-fire way to avoid self-limiting thinking or beliefs. It gets you thinking more creatively, outside the box. When you try and solve a problem in isolation from your fixed level of awareness, you usually find that six months later you’re still in the same spot, feeling even more frustrated and demotivated. In some cases this is dangerous.
#2 Get Healthy and Fit
Physical fitness has a direct impact, not only on your health, but also on the strength and flexibility of your mind and wellbeing. It improves your levels of self-mastery. Exercise gets those valuable endorphins kicking in, lifting your mood and in turn making you feel more positive and self-confident. Going to the gym, exercising outdoors, swimming and other types of physical activities are all great ways to get you out of negative, self-limiting thinking habits. Similarly, yoga, qigong and tai chi that cultivate meditation and mindfulness are also beneficial. Any type of physical activity where you have to focus on your body and your breath and be more mindful is ideal. It gets you into the present moment, clears your mind, and helps you see things differently. It’s about finding things that you genuinely enjoy so that you’ll commit to doing them regularly. Daily rhythms are becoming increasingly important in a complex and constantly changing world. Regular routines make you feel more grounded and focused, regardless of what’s going on around you.
#3 Have A Purpose
You achieve your best by being really clear on why you’re doing what you do every day. Having a clear purpose in life is what keeps you motivated and optimistic, even when things aren’t going exactly as you want them to. It’s about having a purpose and mission in life. Whether that’s being a great parent to your kids, being your best self to the people you care about most, or wanting to positively impact the world via your career and business. Having a purpose is what gives your life direction and meaning. This is because you know what really matters the most to you and why. It’s when you’re feeling motivated, useful and purposeful that you’re able to thrive and be your best.
A version of this article was featured in the December 2016 issue of The Sydney Standard.
by Janelle Legge | Nov 15, 2016 | Wellbeing |
Are you tired of negative people draining you of your energy and enthusiasm for life? Maybe you’ve spent way too long politely and stoically listening to them? Hoping that they will finally ease up on dumping their negative vibes all over you? But they don’t.
If you’re nodding your head in agreement, then it’s time to limit your exposure to negative people, or in some cases disengage from them entirely. Because the impacts of spending too much time around negative people can be insidious and long-lasting:
5 Top Reasons To Stop Spending Time With Negative People
# 1 Increased Self-Doubt
When you’re pioneering your own path in life and feeling a bit vulnerable because you’re venturing into the unknown, it doesn’t take much for a negative person’s remark or disapproving vibe to trigger self doubt in you. It can make you start questioning whether the path you’ve chosen is the right one for you. If you don’t limit your exposure to toxic negative people by setting good boundaries, you can end up losing a lot of precious time second-guessing yourself and your decisions. Robbing you of your optimism and natural exuberance for life.
# 2 Low Self-Esteem
When the negative people in your life are family members, not getting their validation and approval can erode your self-esteem and self-confidence. If this is the case, you need to get some distance from them so you can grow your own psychological roots, and a more robust level of self-esteem. It’s about intentionally disengaging from the negative thinking patterns and beliefs that have been unconsciously passed down from one generation to the next.
#3 Compromised Wellbeing
Negative thinking is bad for your brain. So it’s important to be aware of what you’re thinking and what ideas and views you’re absorbing from other people. Good mental health and overall wellbeing requires positive, optimistic thinking. Repetitive toxic thinking is like a virus. It can deplete you physically and emotionally and compromise your immune system.
#4 Restlessness And Discontent
Regular exposure to negative thinking messes with your desire nature. When this happens it doesn’t matter what opportunities come your way, nothing ever seems quite right for you, or good enough. You struggle to value what you’ve already achieved. You’re always feeling restless and never quite satisfied.
# 5 Abandoning Your Dreams
There’s nothing more demotivating and draining than ending up on the wrong pathway in life because you’ve spent too much time listening to negative people. If this is you, then you need to get back on the right track. Because the longer you leave it, the bigger the task of course-correcting and realigning with your dreams and vision of how you want your life to be.
You are constantly being imprinted and shaped by the 3-5 people you spend the most time with. So if you’re wanting to live a positive, self-directed and successful life, you need to be around like-minded, optimistic people who support and encourage you. Doing this will accelerate your growth like nothing else. You’ll also feel happier, more confident and fulfilled.
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