The NoLimits Blog

Leading Successful Change

Leading Change

There are at least three groups to think about in leading change:

• The individuals experiencing change
• Leaders managing and implementing change
• Other individuals and leaders managing post the change (often those that have moved on and also those left behind….)

There is a necessary and essential understanding of normal human reactions to change which is a great starting point and a practical tool to review what this means for you as an individual and as a leader and understanding what actions you need to take. 

                          

 

 

In addition, we suggest two components that create a powerful ‘how to’ for successful change:

1. Understanding different behavioural preferences during the down part of the change curve, engaging people in the change and managing individual needs (your own and others).
2. Using tools and techniques to get focused on the future and get people (or yourself) back up the other side of the change curve: Detailed change curve here

For step 1, any of the major behavioural profiles will help access the level of individual understanding required to practically manage the change implementation, we recommend Extended DISC for simplicity. See the attached example of the ways you can use type characteristics to drive a discussion on managing individual needs. View styles and change characteristics

 

For step 2, we have had great success in using and applying the Neurological Levels Model (or sometimes Logical Levels Model) by Robert Dilts. The Logical Levels Model is a highly effective tool in focusing on outcomes and solutions and defining reality. See attached document on how. View logical levels and change here.

The Logical Levels can be used to map both the now state and the future desired state and based on the gaps determine what will actually make the change most successful. There are many examples of where change is driven at the wrong level and is ultimately ineffective and unsuccessful. This tool really helps get in right.

In summary we recommend a process to plan effective change that covers the following areas:

1. The change curve and human reactions to change.

2. How to manage others through the change curve.

3. How to seek what you need for yourself through the change curve.

4. Understanding how different behavioural preferences react to change and how to manage different behavioural styles through the change process.

5. How best to build engagement for different behavioural styles during change.

6. Managing change based on ensuring different individual needs are met.
   

7. Creating an outcome focus, understanding the importance of ‘present state’ and ‘desired state’.
8. Understanding the Logical Levels Model.
   

9. Using the Logical Levels Model to shape the vision, gain acceptance and provide hope.
10. How the Logical Levels Model can be used to plan and implement successful change

What do recruiters find when they google your name?

Posted from Bluesteps http://www.bluesteps.com

It is estimated that 70% of executive jobs come via networking. In a world packed with online professional networking sites, the importance of executive self-marketing techniques and personal branding cannot be underestimated. But do you know how to create the image you want? Is your online presence as effective as it could be? Can you be found in the right places?

BlueSteps invites you to participate in this tele-seminar led by Patti Wilson, Managing Principal of the careercompany.com

Click Here to Register

In this seminar you will:

• Find out the strategy, tactics and key tips to use with online social networking sites
• Find out about the top social networking business sites and their target global markets
• Learn about the key things to do specifically on Linkedin, and Facebook to both be seen and reach out to make connections
• See what it takes to raise your visibility to the top page on Google

Immediately following the presentation, an interactive question and answer session will take place. Participants will also be able to submit questions to our expert prior to the seminar.

Click Here to Register

 

How to Build Your Executive Brand and Visibility Online

 Linkedin, Facebook and Social Networks

 
Time – 11:00AM to 12 Noon US EST
         5:00PM – 6:00PM CET

Date – Thursday 9^th April 2009
Via Teleconference

 
Click Here for your local time

 
“If you can’t be found on a Google search, then you don’t exist” is the new catch phrase for executives, and aspiring professionals. The entire thrust of business and consumer marketing today is online. Why would it be any different for executive self-marketing and personal branding? Online visibility enables 24/7 availability for opportunities and extends your reach globally.

BlueSteps invites you to participate in this tele-seminar led by Patti Wilson, Managing Principal of the careercompany.com

In this seminar you will:

• Find out the strategy, tactics and key tips to use with online social networking sites
• Find out about the top social networking business sites and their target global markets
• Learn about the key things to do specifically on Linkedin, and Facebook to both be seen and reach out to make connections
• See what it takes to raise your visibility to the top page on Google

Immediately following the presentation, an interactive question and answer session will take place. Participants will also be able to submit questions to our expert prior to the seminar.

Patti Wilson’s experience encompasses organizational structure and cultural nuance for companies of all sizes and the successful functioning of the high value talent within them. This informs her strategic consulting and insightful advice.  Currently, Patti is affiliated with the Haas Business School, UC Berkeley, Anderson School of Management, UCLA and Stanford GSB and School of Engineering as a career consultant. Prior to founding the Career Company, Patti was an Employment Manager: Sun Microsystems, a business and technical recruiter at Advanced Micro Devices, and Apple Computer.  Patti was also Assistant Director of Career Services Santa Clara University.  With an MA, Career Development, emphasis in Clinical Psychology, Patti is a certified trainer in Behavioral Interviewing, the Myers-Briggs, and the Predictive Index. Patti has been featured in the best seller, What Color is Your Parachute? since 1988.   Po Bronson called her the “guru of Silicon Valley career counselors” in the bestseller, What Should I do With My Life?

Discovering your ‘Purposeful Life’ - Part 3 of 5

So here it is, having defined how things have been for you up to now. Now is the time to choose that more inspirational purpose. To define things as you want them to be. Imagine things how you want them to be. Beginning now with your purpose. Then work through the template and align each level with this purpose that inspires you.

Two rules to do this effectively: 1. decide to express things as you really want them to be, you are free to make this as powerful and inspirational as you can. 2. Write everything in the present tense, as if it were already so. (we will get to the how later).

Purpose:

What is your purpose?

This is about how you want to be connected to others, how you really want to be remembered.

Identity:

Who are you?
Write this as a short sentence about who you are.

Beliefs and Values:

Why is it important to you? What do you believe and value?
List all you can think of that will enable your purpose and identity.

Capabilities:

How are you doing this?
Describe the way in which you live your purpose. The skills that you have that enable this.

Behaviour:

What are you doing?
Remember that although this is aspirational for now, write this in the present tense all the actions you are doing to live your purpose.

Environment:

Where are you?
Where are you doing these things?

Part 4 coming up.....

NoLimits March Newsletter

The Nolimits newsletter for March is now available for download here:

Featured Articles:

Leadership in a crisis:
We‘ve seen the headlines, heard the news and may have experienced the knock on effects of the global crisis. Mckinsey’s have noted that “the global recession is so large that many companies may not survive”. Many people feel insecure because they don’t know what is ahead. The main problem with this thinking is, if we don’t know where we are going, we’ll end up where we are heading. So what can we do to feel more secure and take control......

How to: Create Top Leadership Teams.

Success breeds success so if you want your staff to be more resourceful, motivated and perform better, provide them with an environment that is challenging and stimulating. Leaders want their teams to not just work well, but work superbly because they know it leads to better results and that it’s more stimulating and enjoyable for everyone too!

Download NoLimits Newsletter March

Discovering your ‘Purposeful Life’ - Part 2 of 5

Using the Logical Levels model as described, these are questions you can take all the time you need to answer, that are structured to begin a journey to discover your work or life purpose.

We can have multiple purposes related to our different identities and roles. Notice how you can easily modify the sense of each question to answer from any different perspective that you may choose as most useful for you now.

Answer the following questions about yourself at each level in the model and you can begin the journey of discovery that will shape who you really want to be. Be prepared to experiment and enjoy what you discover.

This is your personal inventory of you as you are today, the old you. Answer the follow questions in the present tense. Write down whatever occurs to you about your current state. You are a complex being, take the time to be thorough and accept that now would be a good time to be completely honest. No one else needs to ever see what you write, this is simply about how you have been and the experiences that have bought you to this point of choice.

You can recognise that the past need have no effect beyond now. You can soon come to choose the ways and states that you are nearly ready to become.

Environment (Where and When)

• Where do I work?
• What do I most enjoy about where I work? Where do I work best?
• Who do I work with today, who do I enjoy working with, who don’t I enjoy working with?
• When do I work? When do I work best?
• What systems, processes and procedures do I use in my environment? What do I enjoy using and not enjoy in my environment?
• What else about my environment do I appreciate and value?
• What in my environment potentially dis-empowers me?

Behaviour (What)

• What do you actually do today? Keep this to a simple description of you actions and activities.
• What are your behaviours? Describe as many as possible. Be honest, this is just for you.
• What habitual ways do I have and what patterns exist that empower and dis-empower me and others?
• What do I notice about my own and others people’s words and actions?
• What do people around me look and sound like, what do they have? What behaviours in myself and others do I like? What do I not like?

Capabilities and Skills (How)

• What skills have you learned that have served you well?
• How would others describe you? Ask others what you are good at?
• What have you become expert at that does not serve you so well?
• What do you admire about yourself?
• What do you not like about yourself?

Beliefs and Values (Why)

• What is really important to you?
• When you have the things that are important to you, what does that get you?
• Explain why you react in the ways you do.
• What do you value about your capabilities?
• List what you believe to be true about yourself and others?
• List what you believe to be right and wrong?
• What do you hold to be true?
• About what do you say “I must” and “I must not”?
• What do you believe about others?
• What do you believe that helps you?
• Begin to recognise what you believe to be true that potentially holds you back – write down these beliefs?

Identity

• Who are you? What sentences summarise your identity best?
• Describe what kind of person are you, describe yourself.
• What identities do you give others?
• How would others describe you in one sentence?
• How do others know who you are?
• How do see yourself, what do you feel most often, what do you say to yourself most often?

Purpose (Connection)

• Describe how people will actually remember you if you died today.
• Describe how you are connected to others today.
• Describe how you are connected today to any higher purpose.
• What do you know today about what reason you are here?

Download a template for these questions here

Part 3 to follow….

Tools to shape a ‘Purposeful Life’ - Part 1 of 5

“The best way to predict the future is to create it”

 

 

Peter Drucker

There is a model for how people work.

It is called the Logical Levels Model, or sometimes the Neurological Levels Model created by Robert Dilts, building on the work of psychologist Gregory Bateson.

The model is a structure you can easily use to help you make sense of the way in which you understand yourself and the world, your relationship to it and others in it.

As with all the best models, in application it is simple and practical and as you take the time you need to apply it, you will be open to being surprised about how it sheds light on where you need to focus to achieve the things that are important to you. To be who you really want to be. This in itself is a great working definition of a purposeful life.

Many of us proceed through life following a simple formula:

DO – HAVE – BE

We DO things so that we can HAVE things and one day we can BE who we really want to be.

 

This approach carries an obvious risk. Can you be sure that ‘one day’ will actually come for you.?

Here a suggested alternative:

BE – DO – HAVE

Alice to the cat: ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’ ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat. ‘I don’t much care where—’ said Alice. ‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat. ‘—so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation. ‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’

Choose to BE now who you really want to be, then you will DO what you need to do and you will HAVE what you want to have.

So you begin to get the idea? There are some obvious questions. Not least, who do you actually want to be, what purpose will you choose and how and what do you then do.

The Logical Levels model then is a way for you to begin to answer some of the questions that you have and a starting point for what you do next….

The Logical Levels Model.

Engineers

During the heat of the space race in the 1960's, NASA decided it needed a ball point pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its space capsules.

After considerable research and development, the Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of $1 million.

The pen worked and also enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here on earth.

The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a pencil.

Now there was a point to this story, if only I could remember what it was....

Interview Skills, CV Writing and Networking - a two day workshop

Singapore, April 2009

A 2-day workshop to get you that job!

• Learn to create the perfect CV
• Develop a powerful plan to network effectively and create opportunities
• Learn and practice competency based interview skills to give an outstanding interview

April Dates: 1-2 April, 15-16 April, 29-30 April
9.00am - 6.00pm each day
The Rendezvous Hotel, Singapore

Places limited, just S$595 (incl GST) per person for the two days, including lunches and refreshments.

Participants and their resumes will be automatically listed in our database of available candidates, distributed regularly to our multinational client base in Singapore.

Download brochure for Power Up Your Job Search

Sign up by emailing sandralai@nolimitsasia.com

How to create top leadership teams

"The best way to predict the future is to create it".

                                                                                                          Peter Drucker

How to Create a Top Leadership Team. Success breeds success to retain your talent for the long term, be resourceful and motivated, provide them with an environment that is challenging and stimulating.

Leaders want their teams to not just work well, but work superbly, because they know it leads to better results and it’s more stimulating and enjoyable for everyone too!

 

So, what changes a group of individuals into an inspiring team capable of delivering a magical performance?  No Limits recommends 5 key steps to outstanding team performance:

1. Own a Common Team Identity. Make time to articulate what a successful team looks like in your eyes.  What are the desired values and identity of the team?  How will the team members be feeling?  What behaviours do you want to see?  What will your customers and stakeholders be saying when they speak about your team? When you are clear about the outcomes you want, then you can focus your attention and activities to achieve them.

2. Develop a Common Vision.  Use customer and stakeholder perspectives, with goals linked to business outcomes.  The vision must be big enough to inspire and everyone needs to feel they have a vital role to play.  Most powerful of all, get the team to create the vision.  Understand the values and identity of the individuals in the team.  When their values connect with your vision, everyone will feel passionate and committed to the journey.

3. Develop Awareness of Self and others.  So often, groups in business fail because of a lack of awareness and understanding between individuals.  It leads to unhelpful competitiveness between team members, lack of collaboration and stalls innovation.  Help your team members understand their own individual strengths and those of their teammates.  When they learn to adapt to one another’s style and understand each other perspectives, outcomes will be much more easily achieved.

4. Learn to Give and Receive feedback. The best organisations we have worked with are the ones where individuals are able to give open, honest and timely feedback to one another.  Everybody needs feedback to know they are on the right track, or to determine how they can be even better.  Building an environment of trust and openness with direct and honest feedback between colleagues, significantly increases the overall performance of the team.

5. Create a Genuine Coaching Culture.  Introduce a professional and structured approach for leaders to coach their teams and each others. This increases self ownership and accountability, develops the strengths of the whole team and allows people to be flexible,creative and innovative and to go beyond their limits.

A winning team is created by deliberate action to be a united team. This is an ongoing and evolving process.

Alpha inventions?

As a blog writer, any one of us is curious about ways to bring traffic to your blog (we write to be read of course) presuming content is interesting to someone, then the challenge is one of reaching that someone - a distribution challenge - recently this blog has started to receive a lot of traffic from a referral site alphainventions.com a little investigation reveals a blog aggregation site - perhaps like stumble upon with a curious difference, that what gets you listed is actually blogging about alphainventions (you can also self refer too which gets you listed for a limited time)... and this is what seems a little weird.. I'm guessing most of the readers are bloggers who have just blogged about alpha-inventions looking for their own site appearing, but then guess what - you actually do start to look at some of the blogs that scroll by... so when is traffic not real traffic.....

UPDATE: 6 hours later and over 3000 page views in that time (1000 times normal!) so what is a page view - it seems that in Alpha Inventions, what this means is that your blog has appeared on the screen in front of someone for about 2 seconds before changing to another blog view - this doesn't actually mean anyone clicked through to see the blog as a whole - however, despite this, visibility is a good thing - so even if just one more person reads the blog ...next i am curious what this might do to google rankings......

Final update: after 36 hours thats it - the flood of page views has run to a stop - and piove thank you for the comment you are correct, just self submitting your blog gets you those few extra page views, while here is the difference, which may be more interesting for a business blog - the difference is having blogged about alpha investions itself, there have been over 16,000 page views in the last 36 hours, double the lifetime page views in the last two years - quite a statistic, what value remains an open question, for me anyway....

Icebreakers for training sessions

The attached pdf file has a series of icebreakers, introductory and closing exercises for use in training seminars - this set was originally designed for graduate students and many of the simple exercises work equally well in a corporate setting to get your participants engaged early and to close effectively.

Download Icebreakers

Questions to ask in brainstorming the HOW to achieve our goals

As a team working to achieve major goals, outcomes and drive change - there is a real need for completeness in preparation and planning.

The following questions are an attempt to 'cover all the bases' and be a thorough as possible is planning the HOW to do your goal, achieve your outcome or manage the change process.

There is an important principle here: 'telling doesn't work" - do change WITH people not to people.

These questions are broken down by 5 areas, as follows:

• Motivating and selling the outcome/ change
• Communication and involvement
• Developing capabilities
• Measurement
• Support and resources

MOTIVATING AND SELLING CHANGE

1. Who are the key individuals or groups we want to get buy-in from?
2. What do they care about?  How does this relate to the proposed change?  What makes it important to them personally to do this?  How can we help them to see that this will help them in a positive way?
3. How do you measure the different levels of buy-in now?  How do you know who is or isn’t bought in and to what degree?  Who is the right person to quantify what is needed?
4. Where are they on the Change Curve, and what do they need to move toward deeper commitment (e.g., information, examples of success, evidence of impact on the bottom line, benefits related to the larger organizational goals)?
5. Do they understand the benefits to the same degree?  Do they agree with them?  If they don’t understand the benefits, can we state them more simply?   How can we acknowledge our successes and highlight the positive impact of our project on results?
6. Do they know what is expected of them – their roles and responsibilities in the change?
7. Is making the change in their goals and objectives?  Is it in those of their direct reports?  Do the goals and objectives motivate them?  How do they balance competing objectives?  Along with all else they are doing, how do we motivate them to see this change as part of their job?
8. How can we engage them in ways that lead to success?  Can they help with the selling?
9. What can we do to create greater motivation and new behaviors (e.g., introduce new forms of rewards, incentives, recognition)?
10. What has worked in the past?  Has there been another situation where they didn’t buy in and then they did – what happened?
11. How can we help them to see this as the reality now, shorter term and not just the longer term time line (e.g., 5 years)?

 

COMMUNICATION AND INVOLVEMENT

1. Who are the stakeholders (the key audiences)?
2. What’s important for them to know?  What are the key messages we want them to hear?  What are the outcomes we are trying to achieve through the communication (e.g., to relay a message, to get input, to request involvement)?
3. How do we tell them with the greatest impact (sources of communication, media)?  Who are the most effective message carriers to each audience (and why)?
4. When do they need to hear the message(s), and how often?
5. Have we identified all the key linkages with other individuals and groups?  In our communication and requests for involvement, have we addressed multi-representation (across business units, teams, etc.)?
6. Are we communicating our progress and successes?  Are we recognizing and acknowledging those who have helped and supported our efforts?
7. How will we know our messages have been heard and understood?

DEVELOPMENT

1. What is missing in our capabilities to get us to the next step?  What do we need to learn? What skill sets do we need to develop?
2. What will best leverage our efforts to achieve our outcomes (i.e., what are the development priorities)?
3. How can we expand upon what we’re doing really well now?
4. How can we learn what we need to know (e.g., useful tools, training, other developmental actions)?  What are the cost-benefits of the different actions (investment of time, effort, funds)?
5. What company or external resources can help us to learn and develop?
6. What is our “development stretch” - new thinking about what we need to develop and how we will develop?
7. What obstacles need to be removed for us to carry out our development actions?

 

MEASUREMENT

1. What are the key indicators of success (Critical Success Factors)? Do they support the vision and objectives of our project?
2. Do our CSF’s address both the technical side of project design and implementation and also change leadership (the five factors in leading change)?
3. What best practices have we or others used to measure performance, success, progress?
4. What are the benchmarks we will use for comparison, our standards for successful performance?
5. What indicators will tell us we are progressing against established milestones?
6. What data do we currently have that works?  What critical information is missing?
7. Do we have multiple sources of measurement and feedback?  Do we have sufficient representation (across stakeholders, business units, process areas, etc.)?
8. How will we measure effectiveness (achieving outcomes) and efficiency (amount of effort, time, 80-20% rule, high-leverage actions)?
9. When will we measure (timing, frequency)?
10. What are the drivers for changing what, how or when we measure?
11. How will we get the data and feedback (e.g., manual/electronic, reports, key assessors and sources of feedback)?
12. How will we compile and report the data and feedback?

 

SUPPORT AND RESOURCES

1. What resources do we need and when do we need them to address key priorities and milestones?
2. Who can provide us with the best support for what we need to accomplish?
3. Which resources will help us to carry out the technical side of our project?  Which resources will help us with change leadership (i.e., helping us with motivation and selling, communication, development, measurement)?
4. What exactly are we looking for from these resources? 
5. What resources currently exist that we can use (information, people, funds, equipment/technology)?
6. What are the priorities for use and allocation of resources given availability, timing, conflicting demands for support?
7. Have we looked at resources across the organization, in other teams?  Is there cross-pollination in our team membership and in the support we are receiving?
8. Which resources can we personally leverage given our own relationships, sphere of influence, ongoing communication?
9. How can our current sources of support help us to find additional resources we now need?
10. What obstacles exist for obtaining the support and resources we need?  How can we overcome these obstacles?

 

Unlocking the motivation behind a goal

Use this powerful questioning technique based on a mathematical model to test for your own or someone else's motivations behind a goal.

Consider your goal and then work through the questions in sequence I, II, III, IV to really test the goal.

Be dilligent and persevere - stick to the wording of the question, especially III.

Either with yourself, or with others, notice the balance of emotion associated with the answers in each quadrant, then you will know how to inspire yourself or others to achieve the goal by focussing on the most 'emotive' answers - as Tony Robbins says "emotion = motion". Once you unlock the motivation, then you can act.

Powerful Questioning using Cartesian Co-ordinates to uncover motivations

 “A Cartesian coordinate system in two dimensions is commonly defined by two axes, at right angles to each other, forming a plane (an xy-plane). The intersection of the two axes creates four regions, called quadrants, indicated by the Roman numerals I (+,+), II (−,+), III (−,−), and IV (+,−). Conventionally, the quadrants are labelled counter-clockwise starting from the upper right.”

 

Wikipedia

 

When Goal Setting Goes Bad

Reference the previous post on how to set effective goals:

Some new research from the Harvard Business School Newsletter on 'When Goal Setting Goes Bad' which underpins the importance of doing this properly.

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5969.html

If you ever wondered about the real value of goal setting in your organization, join the club. Despite the mantra that goals are good, the process of setting beneficial goals is harder than it looks. New research by HBS professor Max H. Bazerman and colleagues explores the hidden cost when stretch goals are misguided.

SMARTER OUTCOMES – A template to define the perfect goal

To be successful in achieving your goals, it is important to focus on your outcome.

Your outcome should be solutions based which will make your goal engaging, real and powerful.

Take your time to write down your goal in the following steps. Make sure you allow enough time to do this thoroughly and that you are not going to be interrupted.

1. What specifically do you want? State in the positive what your outcome is. Make sure you express what you want, not what you don’t want. Use each of the following stages then to refine and enhance this definition of your goal.

2. What can you achieve to reach this outcome? What is actually within your control, resources and capability? Who can help you? Be sure you recognise what is within the control of others and use the outcome of this step to refine point 1 above to ensure achievability.

3. How can you make this outcome relevant to you? Give yourself measurable specific directions to achieve this outcome. Quantify each goal and state in time specific steps.This is your actual plan, step by step for what you will do. Include all the steps you know about today.

4. Visualise your outcome and describe in sensory language what your outcome will look like, what you will hear and be saying to yourself and what it will feel like.

5. How will you ‘act as if’ to realise this outcome? How can you act today in the way you will when you have achieved your outcome. Use this to build confidence and you will both unconsciously and consciously begin to create the conditions that will achieve your goal.

6. Specify evidence of how and when you will know that you have achieved this goal. How and when will you celebrate? It is important to notice when you have achieved your goal.

7. A final check - does your outcome fit your circumstances, your life and your work. Does it have no adverse consequences on your family, friends, work colleagues and the people around you?

This is now a living document, not static, update it frequently. Keep it near you. Look at it every morning to remind you what you need to prioritise today to archive your goal.

How do you ‘do’ Self Esteem?

Feeling frustrated, angry, tense, nervous, overwhelmed, despondent, frustrated.....

Try this Self Esteem exercise; it takes about 8-10 minutes to fully experience this.

Think of self esteem as self valuing. Learn to value yourself.

Notice the first word – ‘self’. Self esteem comes from within and not from seeking to be valued by others. (Interestingly we get most regard and esteem from others when we are healthily self-‘valuing’.)

Take each of these 10 steps carefully and purposefully and fully experience the sense you make and feeling you get at each stage, you can afford to allow yourself all the time you need:

1. Remember the feeling of acceptance: something external that cannot be changed. It can be as simple as ‘accepting’ that it is raining, or the sun is shining. There is nothing you can do about it, just accept. Remember what ‘acceptance’ actually is and what it feels like. Do this now and pause to fully experience acceptance.

2. Now, after a moment, simply become aware of yourself.

3. Apply now this state and feeling of acceptance to yourself. You are unique, no one else can be you, you do not need to do anything to just be you – can you accept that? Feel what it is like to accept yourself unconditionally, now.

4. Now find a state of appreciation. Something you can easily appreciate like a beautiful view, enjoying something you like doing a person you really appreciate. Remember that feeling of deep appreciation of this thing, event or person; take a moment to fully experience this now.

5. Once again become aware of yourself.

6. Now remember again how you accept yourself, and now also get the sense of appreciation and apply that to yourself. Really take the time to feel that appreciation applied to all aspects of who you are.

7. Next, discover now a feeling or state of ‘awe’. Have you been present at the birth of a child? Have you witnessed a major sporting event that has stayed with you, or think of a triumph of human nature that has inspired you. Find and remember what being ‘in awe’ really feels like. Again, take all the time you need to take to find and to enjoy this feeling of awe.

8. Be aware of yourself, once more.

9. With self acceptance and appreciation of yourself, you can now allow yourself to experience a sense of awe for all that you can do. Just simply allow yourself to feel this awe for yourself.

10. Now breathe deeply and relax.

These three together, acceptance, appreciation and awe are the components of Self Esteem, of self 'value'.

Now you can separate yourself from your actions and easily accept and esteem yourself.

“Self esteem is like showering, do it every day otherwise people will start avoiding you.”

Also, if you have children, learn to start saying, ‘that was a silly thing to do’ or ‘that was not the right thing to do’ rather than ‘you’re stupid’, ‘you’re bad’, ‘you’re wrong’ or whatever else you habitually use. Learn to disassociate people from their actions.

 

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson (sometimes incorrectly attributed to Nelson Mandela)