Changeability Podcast: Manage Your Mind - Change Your Life – Details, episodes & analysis

We celebrate 100 episodes as we take a look at the Changeability Podcast past and future.

Here’s some of the top 3s from the past 99 episodes followed by a look at the next episode in the Changeability Podcast story. 

The 3 favourite episodes of our audience to date. These are the shows with the highest number of downloads so far. The longer the episode’s been on iTunes or our BrilliantLivingHQ.com website or Stitcher or TuneIn the longer people have had to listen to it, so we would expect the older shows to have more downloads than newer ones and that’s reflected in these results.

Third most popular episode - ‘What is Mind Management’ Episode 6

In episode 6 of the Changeability Podcast we were thinking about our strap line phrase – ‘Mind Management’. What is mind management and what’s in it for you?

In episode 6 you found out about:

• Kathryn and Julian’s acting skills (you’ve been warned)
• How many thoughts you have in a day
• Why sports people love mind management
• How thoughts have energy
• How you are not thoughts
• How mind management needs training
• Mind management can improve your personal and professional life

Second most popular episode - ‘The Brilliant You’ Episode 2

Do you know how truly amazing you are?  Well that’s what episode 2 is all about.

You might not always feel like a magnificent being, but by the end of this second episode you be agreeing with us that you’re pretty smart.

Because in this show we talk about just how brilliant you and your marvellous mind and what it means.   

• What you’re doing as you listen to the episode (really?)
• How you’re like an iceberg and why that’s a good thing.
• How many things we can focus on at a time
• What Julian learnt from a Memory World Champion (or rather - didn’t learn!)
• The role of the conscious and unconscious brain and how they manage our minds. 

Understanding a few basics about how your mind works, will help you understand what’s getting in the way of doing what you want and what to do about it.

Most popular episode - ‘Changeability – The Start’ Episode 1

The first episode saw us introducing ourselves and the Changeability show. 

The Changeability podcast is for you if you’re interested in changing or improving something in your life or business, big or small. It’s for people like us who’re interested in finding ways to make our lives the best they can be – so we can be more successful (whatever that means to you), happy and fulfilled.

Through discussion and interviews we look at practical mind management and change techniques, tactics & tools - taken from the worlds of personal development, psychology, neuroscience, business, sport, entertainment and spirituality – to empower and inspire a happier, successful life or business.

In the first episode you find out:

• What is Changeability?
• And why should you care about it?
• Why is change hard?
• How we can self-sabotage our best intentions
• Why it’s not your fault - and why it’s good.
• Our story and what we’ve learnt

We love you being here wherever you’re from – so this isn’t our favourite countries – but rather the top 3 countries with the highest number of listeners out of the 167 countries we currently have listeners in.

• Third – UAE 6%
• Second – USA 19%
• First – UK 48%

(And just in cast you’re interested the fourth is Australia with India in fifth place.)

This was so hard to choose, especially as we decided not to include any interviews in our top 3s (maybe they’re deserving of a separate post) – but here’s three each with a couple of extras thrown in for good measure.

Kathryn’s favourites

• Episode 3 – The Library in your brain
• Episode 19 - Why use affirmations to manage your mind?
• Episode 31 – 5 mind management techniques for changing your life.

Julian’s favourites 

• Episode 43 – What is mindfulness and why you need it?
• Episode 46 - 21 simple tips for mindfulness meditation.
• Episode 56 What is happiness and the neuroscience behind it

Couple of extras

• Episode 85 How to recognise toxic people and relationships
• Episode 89 What does success mean to you

Very hard to pick 3 out of the 78 we have  so far across the different iTunes countries as we obviously love them all.  So we can’t really call these our favourites but they are reviews we’ve especially like.

Excellent - iimmmii from United Kingdom

One of the best ‘change your life’ resources I’ve come across. If you like to understand the theory and evidence (be it scientific or anecdotal) behind advice on how to change your life, this material is presented in an engaging way in this podcast. Of course they also make recommendations for how best to go about taking action. A few episodes in and you will feel like you’ve made two new friends who are supporting you on your journey of change. Well done Kathryn and Julian, listening to you makes me proud to be from the same Sceptred Isle!

A Homely Serving Up of Sound Advice/Wisdom - Ola-B. from United Kingdom

Where has this amazing couple been all my life?! :) Love Kathryn, love Julian, and let's not forget Dude!!! Love this podcast - the topics, the delivery of it all...it's simply unique, uplifting and inspiring! Thank you guys!

Kathryn and Julian's chemistry rocks! -   LornaLi from United States

I love the concept of this show! It's so unique and refreshing! I absolutely LOVE the hosts' chemistry - their exchanges are such a joy to listen to. Thank you for all the useful tips you provide to your listeners on how to plan and achieve their goals, I'm sure many are reaping so many benefits from this show!

Thank you to you for taking the effort and making our day. By the way – we’d love more reviews. We don’t always ask for them in every episode as it gets tedious for you to listen to – and we want to provide you with a good listening experience. However, reviews are important to us not only because it’s great to find out what you think but it means iTunes makes our show more visible to people looking for podcasts.  You know yourself the power of reviews on sites like Tripadvisor and Amazon – so if you feel like helping us out that’s one way to do it. 

Who’s been with us all through every single episode and every phase of the podcasting process – in fact he’s always with us – Dude the Dog, our faithful hound and black labradoodle.

We’ve joked we have a contractual obligation to mention him in every show – not that we’ve quite done that but he’s had more than his fair share of mentions and even made it onto the show on a few occasions.

So here’s Dude’s top 3 favourite Changeability Podcast moments as chosen by him (woof).

• Episode 83 ‘Self-love Rituals’ – The 10th of our self-love rituals is to have Pet Time. Walk, cuddle, play with or groom your dog or cat or talk to your budgerigar. You might not get this if you don’t have a pet – but if you do have one you’ll know what we mean!
• Episode 63 ‘How to start and finish anything with Tom Boother’ – Dude features in a cameo role when Tom starts talking about Dude and how they met!
• Episode 98 ‘What are habits and why we need them’ – Dude gets his own moment in the spotlight. You’ll have to listen to this episode to know what we mean, or just listen to episode 100 to hear the extract.

You wont know what we’re talking about here if you’ve never listened right to the end of our shows – but listen to episode 100 to hear 3 of them for your entertainment – and why they’re called Kathryn’s bloomers!

Here’s just 3 of the many things we’ve learned from creating 100 episodes of this podcast over the past two years, and they’re all relevant to you.

1. You can’t always measure your impact

Sometimes it’s hard to measure your impact – this goes for measuring the success of a podcast or many things.  How do you measure your success or the impact you have?

On the whole people don’t tell you and it’s not always possible to make a connection e.g. between who’s listened to the podcast and who’s visited the website or bought an Affirmation or audio mind management tool or a course like our ‘Beginner’s guide to mindfulness meditation’. 

That’s not to say there aren’t any clues. Ways of gauging if we’re having a positive impact include comments in our FB group or page and reviews on Stitcher or iTunes. Plus nomination for national / international podcast awards – being a finalist for the New Media Europe Audience Appreciation Award and winner of the UK Podcaster’s Best Self Help Podcast Award.  But the truth of it is that for the thousands of our podcast listeners each month, for the most part it’s hard know the difference, if any, it makes to them. 

Does that matter? Yes and no.  Yes because from a resource and business perspective it’s helpful to have a handle on the impact but also no because sometimes it’s not just possible to know but that doesn’t make it any less valuable.

This is an important lesson for us all because you don’t always know the impact of what you do in your work, relationships and everyday life – but that in itself doesn’t mean you should stop what you do.

1. Stickability and focus

Creating 100 episodes of a podcast, especially one like this, is an achievement. This is an important lesson for us and maybe also you as well.  When we do something consistently and with focus it creates results. 

We may not know the full impact of those results but there are some clear results for us.

• 100 episodes of a podcast are out there in the world being listened to in 167 countries.
• 100 blog posts which are the show notes on this website.
• Winners of a national podcast award and finalists for another.

All of which is the result of focus and stickability – week by week.  And now we have this body of work that is out there in the world whatever happens in the future – no-one can take that away from us.

This goes for you as well – what is it you want to achieve? A new skill, producing something, writing a book, starting your own podcast, setting up a business.  Whatever it is clarity, consistency, stickability and focus is the key.

1. Review evaluate and change

The third lesson for us has been learning the importance of reviewing and evaluating what you’re doing.  We’ve been doing just that with our podcast as 100 seems a good point to do so.

We’ve been looking back on the experience of the past two years, learning from it and making changes.  This is something we advocate for you too. It’s about being deliberate about what you do rather than just carrying on doing the same thing because that’s what you do or what people expect of you.  It might be a matter of fine-tuning and pivot or of big changes.

For us it’s meant reviewing our experience, going right back to why we started Brilliant Living HQ in the first place. In fact going back further than that to why we wanted to make the big change in leaving our previous careers.  Sometimes it’s good to remind yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing. 

One of the things we always said was that we wanted more control over our time and to spend time doing what we want to do, and more time for ourselves. We know that time is a resource, even our most precious resource.

So to put these two things together we’ve been looking at how we spend our time and efforts, in effect the resources we put into the podcast – that’s the review bit.

Next came the evaluation. Is the balance right? This is a challenging one for us because we love doing the podcast, which means it’s always high on our list of priorities, together with the schedule we set ourselves and the way we create our show.

Review, evaluate and make changes in the light of your experience to make sure you’re always taking control of your own path.

That’s what we’ve done – and to see what changing we come to the future.

The result of our thinking about what we’ve done and what we want to do is that we love the podcast and you the listeners, so we’re going to continue with it but take a break over the summer for a few weeks.

We’re taking this short break for an exciting reason, because when we return at the beginning of September we’ll have the Changeability Success Club.

We’re taking the next few weeks to get this exciting club ready for you.  We’re ordering the carpets and curtains, mowing the lawn, changing the beds, only joking, it’s an online club to take the things we talk about on the Changeability podcast and make them a reality in your life. 

With everything you could want and need to help you make changes in your life alongside a great community of people like you to support each other.   More on that very soon, but for now we wanted to let you know it’s coming. 

We’re putting a lot of love and time into creating what we believe will be the best online club for you to become a member of. 

We’ve been working on it behind the scenes for a while now and now we want to put a special effort into the final push to get it ready for opening the doors.  We’ve been making videos and templates and downloadable tools including special audio tools to help you not only get clear about what you want but also give you the tools and support to make it happen – all within our special membership club for those of you who join us.

So we’re taking the next few weeks to get it ready for you and when we come back it will be here.  We’ll have one hundred places ready – it’s going to be really special and we can’t wait to share it with you.

So exciting!

• Subscribe to the podcast so you’re notified when the next episode goes live and you wont miss it. 
• Get on our email list if you’re not on it already. That way you’ll be amongst the first to know when the Changeability Success Club goes live and get a chance to grab one of the first 100 places as soon as they are available.
• And if by any chance you think you might miss us over the next few weeks:
• There’s plenty of podcast episodes to catch up on - 99 of them to be precise. Why not start with the ones mentioned in the show today?
• There’s lots to read on this site.
• Follow us on Twitter, like our Brilliant Living HQ FB page and ask to be notified of updates, and join the Changeability FB group.

Thanks for being here and listening to the show and we look forward to talking again soon.

“Habits are formed by the repetition of particular acts. They are strengthened by an increase in the number of repeated acts. Habits are also weakened or broken, and contrary habits are formed by the repetition of contrary acts.” ― Mortimer J. Adler

Habits are an intrinsic part of who we are and how we function.  Habits are fundamental to how we think and behave, which makes them key to how we live our lives and make our decisions.

The achievement of our goals and success are more the product of our daily habits than any one off transformative situation or action on our part.

Habits are a key part of mind management because;

• your mind use habits like a shortcut or brain power saving device or mechanism
• if you manage your mind in a helpful way you can utilise the power of habits. Rather than viewing habits in a negative light as something we need to control and overcome, they become an empowering tool to enhance our lives, help us make changes and be happier.

To do this we need to know which habits are good for us and to continue and critically which habits are not supporting our goals. The first step therefore is to identify a habit you want to change for a helpful, empowering, positive, healthy or wealthy habit, or a new habit you want to cultivate. 

This an important step as the funny thing about habits (like limiting thoughts) is we’re not always aware of them. We have to take a deliberate step back to identify the habit or to acknowledge that thing we keep doing but would really love to change is indeed a habit – an habitual way of behaving in response to a situation or action.

Now you know the habit you want to change, is it a matter of using your willpower to change it and your motivation to keep going?

Yes and no.  Yes because when it comes to habits willpower and motivation both have an important role to play but they’re not enough on there own as there are limitations to be aware of.

Willpower is the power to exercise your will.  To have control over what you do and self-discipline.

But the thing about will power is you only have so much of it and when it runs out – because we’re tired or hungry or sad – it’s hard to rely on. 

This is why you can wake up with good intentions and lots of willpower but by the evening it’s decidedly harder to exercise your will.

Although you can get better at exercising willpower the more we do it, your brain likes your habits so wants you to keep them.

So although willpower has a role to play in changing your habits, it can’t be relied on to do it alone.  The same goes for your motivation.

Your motivation is the purpose or the ‘why’ behind what you do – in this case behind the new habit you want.

I think of motivation as having different levels or layers and each level or layer has a different strength.

Think of it as concentric circles –circles within circles like an onion.

The outer layer is your big ‘why’ or the purpose that motivates you.

Say you want to develop some health and fitness habits– the big outer layer motivation is to be healthier and fitter because it makes you feel better, gives you more energy, to get the most out of life, you look better which makes you feel better, and that makes you a better happier person in yourself and relationships.

In short the outer layer is you want to develop healthy habits because being fit and healthy feels good and makes me a happier person.  That’s all very well and good but it’s hard to keep that at the forefront of our mind in everything we do – and we know that willpower will only take us so far.  Especially as we move in onto the next layer.

The next layer or circle in is your situation. For example, you have a busy life, you’re looking after your house, maybe you have a family or a hectic social life or many commitments, and you’re always rushing around from one thing to the next.

Then we get to the next layer in which is your career or job that maybe demands a lot from you in terms of energy and time.

Next comes the final layer because right in the middle (like the bullseye on a dart board) is a circle which represent you.  It has the word ‘you’ of ‘me’ written in it.

This is you at this very moment or in the present moment when you’re thinking about it.

That’s the model but it’s not static, because the thickness of these layers changes over the day and over the week, they may be different at the weekend to a Monday morning,

The point is your motivation which starts off with the best of intentions can get hijacked or watered down as you move through the layers.

So first thing in the morning you start off with good intentions about changing your habits but then you get busy getting the breakfast done, getting to work, your energy dips and then the you in the middle circle – i.e. the you at that precise moment –  isn’t so worried about the bigger picture because the needs of the moment are nearer to you than the big circle on the outside. And the needs of the moment are that you’re hungry, you’re busy and need something quick to boost your energy but more importantly in that moment to overcome the hunger and to do it quickly and easily in a satisfying way. 

That’s when you don’t want to just be relying on willpower and motivation and can do with something else to help you.

Let’s think about what that could be and to do this we need to go back to the idea of what a habit is.

Habits have a cycle they go through.  These are the elements or phases a habits exhibits or has h to be classed a habit. A habit is made up of

• the cue or trigger,
• the routine, action or behaviour
• and the reward or what we get out of it – the benefit.

This whole habit process or framework is sometimes referred to as the habit loop and it’s a crucial concept to changing your habits. 

Now comes the clever part. You take this habit loop and use it to your advantage to reduce your reliance on willpower or motivation to help you form new empowering habits to support your goals. 

In practical terms you do this through disrupting this existing habit loop and tying the new habit you want to cultivate to an existing one.  In that way the existing habit or activity becomes the cue or trigger for the new one you want to do.

So you take a habit you do every day like cleaning your teeth or having a shower and disrupt or interrupt it – because you’re not necessarily completely changing the habit, you might be adding in a new habit.

You’re effectively hijacking or piggybacking an existing habit.

I’ve been doing this by interrupting my morning bathroom routine to insert a push-ups and stretching directly in-between cleaning my teeth and having my shower. And it works as I’ve done it every day this year. It’s now intrinsically tied into my morning routine so it doesn’t feel right to get in the shower if I haven’t done my little exercise habit.

Try it for yourself.  Tie or link your new habit to an existing one and see how long it takes to create a new pattern of normality, in other words a new habit. Let us know how you get on. 

“Habits aren’t destiny. Habits can be ignored, changed, or replaced. But the reason the discovery of the habit loop is so important is that it reveals a basic truth: When a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. It stops working so hard, or diverts focus to other tasks. So unless you deliberately fight a habit—unless you find new routines—the pattern will unfold automatically.” ― Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do

Hear us talk about all of this and more on episode 99 of the Changeability Podcast.

Links

• Habits and why you need them - Changeability Podcast episode 98
• The Library in your brain – Changeability Podcast episode 3
• Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What we do

Thank you and next steps

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Have you thought about what success looks like to you? If so, how do you measure your success? 

Actually the first question is – do you need to to measure success?

We say yes.  

One, because when you measure your success it makes you think about it.  What is success and what does it mean to you? It makes you aware of what you want in life or business, rather than wandering aimlessly.

Two, it gives you something to aim for, and we know that as humans we thrive and are generally happier and more fulfilled when we have a sense of purpose.

Three, what gets measured gets done.

It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.” ~ Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

So how do you measure success?

That depends on the sort of success it is. Here’s 6 ways to measure success – or 6 different types of success and our (some obvious and some not so obvious) suggestions of how to measure them. 

1. Academic success

• Test results, marked work, grades
• Qualifications
  • success at taking tests or being good at exams
  • a test of memory
  • a specific skill or ability such as art or sport
• Ability to reason
• Create a coherent argument

1. Work and career success

• Salary
• Title
• Promotion
• Status
• Achievements
• Bottom line –sales, bonuses
• Social impact

1. Business success

• Number of products produced
• Number of products or services sold
• Success statistics according to the industry e.g. online - the number of website visitors or signups; podcasting - the number of downloads and listeners
• The ultimate measure of success is business is profit – with the possible exception of social enterprises.

1. Body, health and fitness success

• Weight including:
  • calories consumed in a day
  • weight loss and gain
• Body measurements
• Percentage of Fat
• Cholesterol, blood pressure etc.
• Fitness
  • Number of repetitions
  • weight lifted
  • time spent running
  • distance covered
  • number of visits to the gym or sports played in a week
• Inches lost or gained
• % of fat or blood pressure or cholesterol reduced
• Softer measures
  • increased self-esteem and confidence
  • look good
  • feel stronger and fitter, able to walk further or do more

1. Lifestyle

• Experiences
• Travel –
  • locations,
  • time away
  • holidays
• Making enough money to support
  • travel
  • lifestyle
  • hobbies
  • experiences you want
  • Enough money to live where and how you want e.g. on a beach for a year like a digital nomad
• It’s a different way of measuring success but just as valid and maybe more fun

1. Love and Relationships

• Number of years in a relationship or anniversaries reached
• Love hard to define and therefore hard to measure
• Something to do with feelings and compatibility
• Happy family
• Number of friends or people in your networks (although can be superficial)

Hear us talk more about this in episode 90 of the Changeability Podcast

• Get your free Changeability Starter Kit at com
• Or buy the Changeability book at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Thank you for listening and reading this.  If you like the show, please go to iTunes now and leave us a review – we will love you for it.

We start every episode of the Changeability Podcast with the words ‘brought to you by Brilliant Living HQ .com’ because that’s our online home.  That’s where you find us, our products, the 89 podcast episodes we’ve published to date, and hundreds of blog posts. 

But this week we asked you if you’re experiencing ‘brilliant living’. If you take the dictionary definitions of the two words and put them together it brilliant living means something like ‘living life in a way that is excellent, bright and marvelous, pursuing a lifestyle that feels very good to you.’

We define ‘brilliant living’ as living life on your own terms. Ok, so its not always 100% possible, but it is definitely more possible than most people think.

Sure there are physical and social parameters, but we can push those boundaries and look at what are the real boundaries and which are those created by the cultural norms and social expectations we go along with.

What brought all this on you might ask.

Well this week we had a fabulous day in London. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and it was the first warm day of spring. We met our son Alexander for a full works English breakfast sitting outside at the Bankside Café – they even had three vegetarian options for me. We walked along the Southbank of the River Thames - past Tate Modern, past Shakespeare’s Globe and down to London Bridge, where we ambled round Borough market, saw the house from Lock Stock and ended up drinking smoothies in the Refectory Garden at Southwark Cathedral – all by lunchtime.  Returning along the river to the Royal Festival Hall we met with some Tropical Think Tankers for a Mastermind Session and had a fun productive great time talking business. Then back to my sister’s house for family dinner before driving home to pick up Dude the Dog and get back to our house and bed.

Reflecting on it in my appreciation time the next day I thought to myself – that was a brilliant day. This triggered thoughts about what makes a successful day.

Because in a way success is another way of looking at what brilliant living means to you. So how do you define success – what does success mean to you?

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.” Abraham Lincoln

The Oxford Dictionary describes success as

‘The accomplishment of an aim or purpose.’

‘The attainment of fame, wealth or social status.’

‘A person or thing that achieves desired aims or attains fame wealth,'

These last two definitions are interesting because this is the sort of thing that springs to mine when we think about what success means. 

There is the idea that success is about getting to the top of the ladder especially in terms of career and moving up the corporate hierarchy.   Any organisational chart will make it obvious where you are in the scheme of things, but at what point on that ladder of success will you think you’ve been successful?

It will partly depend on why you’re doing the job. Is success about the status or b the influence and impact you will have?  Is it connected to the benefits or trappings of success?

Another way of looking at success is about reaching an expert status. We call people a success when they reach a level of expertise like actors, musicians and sports people.

An interesting question is at what level do you become a success in your own eyes and in the eyes of those around you.

The most common definition of success is probably around financial or monetary success. 

There’s a wealth connotation implied when we think about success. When we say someone’s done well or they’re a real success, more often than not the implication is around wealth, but it doesn’t need to be.

Success can equally encompass social impact as seen in social enterprises and community based initiatives and roles.

Then there is success in terms of social standing where success is being in with the right people and networks or getting into the right club and achieving some perceived level of social acceptance.

When we’re at school, college or university, exam success is a massive part of our lives – whether we want it to be or not. People are seen as successful or not depending on the qualifications they achieve and then the occupation they go into.

Once you get into the work place that academic success which you needed to get you there becomes less and less important.

Most of us would want to include definitions of success that revolve around success in aspects of our personal life.   It could be in terms of health or fitness or around weight, or success in a hobby we love doing or learning a skill.

What about defining success in terms of our relationships. It could be being a good friend or a good partner, husband or wife or a family member or a great parent or being popular.

Success to you might be about your career and business and it may or may not be associated with money or that it gives you the means to lead the sort of life you want to live. Part time working might not make you successful in terms of your finances but allows you to be a more successful in your parenting role.

In thinking about what success means to you it comes down to what makes you feel like a success or what makes you feel successful.

Success looks different at different ages and stages of life e.g. someone leaving school will define success differently to someone about to retire.  But there are elements and characteristics of success that remain consistent throughout, even if the way they’re played out changes over time.

As you think about what success means to you, think about whether your definition of success allows you to experience these.

From being able to use your talents and skills and getting things done, seeing something through to a good outcome.

One aspect of success is having our efforts or talents recognised and respected and feeling validated.

We feel successful when we feel valued and recognised but also when we value ourselves and our individuality and capability.

Success can be connected with purpose where you have an idea of what you want to achieve and where that purpose is aligned with your personal values. Real success only happens when its in line with what’s important to you.  So if integrity is important to you, it doesn’t matter how successful you are in the eyes of the world if you achieve that success in dubious ways. You will not experience success because that wouldn’t be your definition of success.

These are key characteristics of success for many people. Being successful means feeling secure in who you are and what you do and in the basics of life but also having a sense of control or being in charge of your own life and destiny. Being able to choose the sort of life you live.

Contentment with your life and the in your relationships is another facet of success.  This is about inner contentment rather than being accepting of things as they are. It doesn’t mean you don’t strive for more or for changes but that this striving helps you grow rather than scuppering you. Because when you are content inside you don’t have to rely on others for that contentment or inner happiness.

Love has a key role to play in success.  To love and be loved is an important part of what success means to many people. It’s a big part of what makes them feel successful.

Last but not least comes fulfilment.  In a way I think this is one, if not the most important characteristic of success.  We feel successful when we feel fulfilled.  This could be in so many ways but its about fulfilling potential in any area of your life or work.  Its about doing something you feel good about and getting a positive outcome for you or for others. It can also be about contribution.

“Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and abilities were used in a way that served others.”  Marianne Williamson

So what does success means to you? How do you define success in your life - any area of your life? In fact that’s an interesting place to start. What areas of your life spring to mind when you start trying to define what success means – start with those and then move on to others. 

Because brilliant living starts with being aware of what you mean by that, what does brilliant living mean to you, what does success mean to you.  Next week we’re going to think about how we can measure that success.

If you want a bit of help with thinking about these things sign up for our free changeability starter kit.

Hear Julian and I talk about all of this and more besides in episode 89 of the Changeability Podcast.

If you like listening to the show we’d love you to let us know by leaving us a review on iTunes – we will love you even more and at some point we will read it out on the show.

What do you want to change in your life? Do you want more or less of something or to learn a new skill or experience different things? Or do you want to change something about your relationships or body or work or finances?

It doesn’t have to mean you hate your life or work now – but you just want it to be better in some way.  

Yes, we all want changes but WHY do we need mind management to do it.

‘Life management begins with mind management. The quality of your life is influenced by the quality of your thoughts.’ Robin Sharma 

Your brain is amazing and has enormous power. Its big job is to keep you alive and it does that by keeping you safe which tends to mean maintaining the status quo – because that’s what’s worked so far.

This is fabulous for keeping you alive – but it’s not always so fabulous when you want to make changes – in other words you want to move away from the status quo in some way.

It’s important to know that although you think you make your decisions and plans – including what you want to change – much of your thought processes go on at an unconscious level and decisions are made without you being aware of them much of the time.

It has to do this. We have control over the conscious part of your mind, and although amazing, your conscious mind has limitations. It loses focus easily and typically holds about 7 chunks of information at any one time.

This is why the subconscious takes control of most of what’s happening in our bodies. It’s the engine driving us – leaving our conscious mind to focus on other things. 

This is critically important when we want to make changes, because your unconscious mind, which is a million times more powerful than your conscious mind, is running the show.  And it does much of this based on the beliefs and habits you’ve built up over your lifetime – not all of which are serving you well.

Both parts of your mind are crucial not only to survival but also to getting the changes and living the life you want. The real trick is to get them working together to make this happen.

This enables you to use the whole of your marvellous mind brain to work for you and not against you –otherwise it’s all to easy to end up self-sabotaging what you want to achieve. We’ve all done that!

Why when you want to lose weight do you still eat the very thing that you know will not help you get the body you want?  Because your mind is screaming at you that you’ve hungry and want to eat and want to eat something that tastes nice – and your belief and experience tells you that cream cakes – especially a Victoria sponge with butter cream icing – will fill you up quickly and taste nice, and you’ve had a hard day so of course you deserve a little treat.

Now that might be irritating and throw you off course a little but it also happens in really important decisions and situations. You want to leave a job and set up a new business for yourself, but your subconscious is screaming at you – ‘are you mad,  you’ll never make a good business person, why do you think you can do it, you never see anything through.’ Or whatever it might be for you, based on your past experience.

Mind management is about becoming aware of the impact your thoughts have on yo,u and using your mind to your advantage. 

Time to take a step back - because underlying all of this is the notion that the way we think and the thoughts we think, influence what we do. 

Our thoughts influence how we feel, which influences what we do or the actions we take, which impacts how we live our lives.

It sounds obvious when you say it like that – but just take a moment to think about it and see if you really believe this is so or if you’re aware of it in your day to day life.

The thoughts you think lead to the action you take.

It therefore follows that if you change your thoughts (that’s the way you think) then you can change your actions. This means you can make the changes you want in your life, work or business. 

It’s a fabulous concept to accept and goes hand in hand with the concept that your thoughts are things. 

Your thoughts are not you and you are not your thoughts. 

You are not defined by your thoughts.  Which means that you can change your thoughts to help you live how you want to live.  That’s what we mean when we talk about mind management.

We’ve been talking about why you mind management to help you make changes, but it’s not just about doing things differently. It’s also about improving the everyday experience of being alive. After all, one of the changes you could look for is to be happier in your daily life, or more enthusiastic for life.

It’s not just about things, its about ‘being’ as well.

And mind management is the key. 

Yes - to a large extent we do have to learn mind management because we’ve not been taught how to manage our minds. 

We don’t learn it at school – although some schools teach subjects like critical thinking but that’s something different. At best, we may have learnt something about the component parts of the brain and its functions.

Most of us don’t pick it up from our natural interactions with our parents, probably because they never learnt it themselves.

But this is your opportunity to learn about mind management now. 

We’ve talked about the two major components of the mind being the conscious and the subconscious. And we know that our brain is in effect an information processing system, containing nerve cells (neurons) which are connected through synapses. 

These neural pathways are influenced and strengthened by what we do, the influences in our lives, our previous experiences, beliefs and values we have stored in our minds. And these neural networks or pathways are strengthened by repetition.

One of the potential problems of the mind is that it can be consciously (by our thoughts) or unconsciously influenced (by our subconscious). And the subconscious is the more powerful.

We’re suggesting you get the conscious and the subconscious to work in harmony through mind management. So there’s no dissonance or disagreement between the two component parts of the brain and between your actions and your beliefs.

That is the key to getting what you want and making the changes and why you need and want mind management.

We know we can influence our conscious mind – we can determine our thoughts, so we need to influence our subconscious so it aligns with the subconscious.

We also know that our subconscious mind was itself programmed, and can therefore be reprogrammed, but the process is slow and incremental. 

It’s likened to a super tanker (the subconscious) being controlled by the captain of the ship (the conscious). 

The captain (the conscious mind) may be in charge, but the instructions the captain give take a long while to affect and influence the super tanker that is our subconscious.

But the subconscious, like the formation of any habit, including thinking habits, can be influenced through repetition.

Advertising relies on this repetition of key messages to get you to believe and then buy into their product, concept or ideas.

This is why you can recall adverts from years ago, even your childhood, because of the power of repetition. Particularly when you add in a few tricks of the trade to make it even more memorable, tricks incidentally we can use to our advantage in mind management terms.

The bottom line is mind management will help you change what you want to change and achieve what you want to achieve.  

You manage your mind by training your mind to think in certain ways – so you develop habits and ways of thinking to support change, happiness and success for you.

Training your mind might sound a far out or like some sort of trickery, but all it means is using certain techniques and ways of thinking that you can develop through practice.

With the result that you can improve and transform your life and business through your thoughts, self-beliefs and the action you take.

Key mind management techniques include:

• Goal setting or vision setting
• Affirmations
• Visualization
• Hypnosis
• Mindfulness and Meditation
• Learning and internalising new skills through repetition and practice
• Developing yourself through reading and writing.

These are the very techniques we talk about here at Brilliant Living HQ and on the Changeability Podcast. They’re also captured into a 10 step framework which shows how they all fit together and build one on the other in the Changeability framework.

You will find the full version of this written out in a logical practical step by step framework on Amazon in the book Changeability: Manage your Mind - Change your Life either in Paperback or in Kindle.  This is the best place to get the full explanation and exact steps.

Or you can of course listen to the last 88 episodes of the Changeability Podcast! But it will be a lot quicker to read the book!

Hear us discuss all of this and more in episode 88 of the Changeability Podcast.

• Changeability: Manage your Mind - Change your Life book on Amazon

Thank you for being here and being wonderful.  If you like listening to the show please leave us a review on iTunes. If you’ve read the Changeability book please leave a review on Amazon.

At a recent business event I had 30 seconds to introduce myself and what I did. This is the so-called elevator pitch and it’s not as easy as you might think.  Having seen how some people were struggling to get their description done in 5 minutes let alone 30 seconds it was suggested we use the quick little formula – I help …. To …. By….   I was the next one up so I sat there and said:

“I help people make changes in their life or business by managing their minds”.

It worked because everyone went ‘oooohhh’ and wanted to know what does that actually mean and how do you that.

And it got me thinking that it's a long time since we've actually talked about what it is we actually do or rather the idea behind what we actually do.

So today we're going to put that right because we’re going back to basics and thinking about what fundamentally underpins everything we talk about at Brilliant Living HQ.  It’s also the subject matter of my Changeability book and underpins the whole Changeability process and practice and Brilliant Living products.

It is mind management! 

The key question is what is mind management and why do we all need it.

At it’s most basic level mind management is about managing your mind.

Which maybe isn’t saying much – or more like it’s saying the same thing twice – there’s a nice word for that – tautology!

But mind management is about managing your mind and we’re very keen on the whole idea of it.

Our strap line here at Brilliant Living HQ is ‘Mind management for your best life and business’ or at least it was until we changed our site recently – we thought our logo looked better without it but maybe we should put it back somewhere so people know what it’s about!

And the strapline to our podcast (and the Changeability book) is ‘Manage your Mind – Change your Life’.

Why the obsession with mind management – what lies behind it?

Mind management is the idea you can:

‘Harness the amazing power of your mind to help you get what you want in life.’ 

In other words you can reprogram or train your mind to create the right mindset to change what you don’t like into what you do like, and achieve your desires and live life to the full.

“The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind.” ~ Wayne W. Dyer.

That’s a good start, but can we define it further and look at the individual elements of ‘mind management’ to get a better working definition? 

The Business Dictionary defines management as:

“The organisation and coordination of the activities of a business in order to achieve defined objectives.”

The Merriam-Webster dictionary adds a useful extra dimension defining management as:

“The act or skill of controlling and making decisions about a business.”

If we take these definitions together and replace business with the mind we come up with:

“Mind management - The act or skill of controlling, organising and coordinating the activities of the mind in order to (make decisions to) achieve defined objectives.”

This does assume that you have already determined what you want from your life, and have a vision of your defined objectives (goals) and what you have to do to achieve them.

And for us that’s where it always begins – getting clear about what you want – because there are clear mind management reasons for doing this and for using the power of your brain and mind to help you achieve those goals and the changes you want. It has to start with intention plus inspiration which equal your vision or goals. 

If you want to know more about that go to brillliantlivinghq.com/goals to be one of the first people to find out about our goals challenge.

So that’s the management bit. Now for the second part. 

There are basically two major components of the mind - the conscious and the subconscious.

The conscious which is the bit we’re aware of – e.g. as you’re listening to this, the thoughts you’re thinking about what you want to eat or drink or what you’re doing later or reacting to what you’re hearing.  This is what we think about and what we’re aware of.  We tend to think of it as us – ‘this is me’ – but there is a lot more to you than that. 

Your conscious mind is like the tip of the iceberg because underneath it is what’s often called your subconscious, the bit below the conscious mind. We think of it below if thinking about an iceberg – but it’s sub (as in submerged or submarine) in terms of our not being aware of it.  The other name – which is probably more accurate – is the unconscious. 

This is the part we’re not aware of – but keeps us alive because it carries out millions of actions every day without us even thinking about it.

Taken together these two components of your mind create what is in effect an information processing system whose purpose is to keep you functioning and alive. 

When we talk about our mind we’re really using the term to describe aspects of what goes on inside our brain.  People often use the two terms interchangeably but they’re not really the same thing.

There are different physical elements to our brain, which you can easily see in any diagram of the brain, but our mind is what goes on within that physical organ. Your mind is where your consciousness and personality are.

It’s a a bit like the software inside a computer. The brain is the hardware and the mind the software. But it’s not as straightforward as that as our thoughts are the result of our experiences and interpretations and feelings – so it’s more mixed.

Essentially our brains contain nerve cells (called neurons) that are connected through synapses.  This is how thoughts are formed.

These neural networks or pathways can be and are strengthened by repetition. Likewise, these pathways can be consciously and unconsciously influenced and strengthened by what we do, by the influences in our lives, by the previous experiences, beliefs and values we have stored in our minds.

This is not only one of the facets or characteristics of how your mind works but is also one of the reasons why we need and want to manage our minds.

Next week we’ll be exploring this further when we talk more about exactly why you really do want mind management to be an everyday part of your life. 

If really can’t wait until next week to learn more – then you will find it all neatly explained in my book Changeability: Manage your Mind – Change your Life - together with a 10 step logical framework of ten practical mind management techniques, you can start using right away.  Get it here now (and it’s on special offer this week!)

You can hear us talking about this and more in episode 87 of the Changeability Podcast. 

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Buy the book of our mind management program Changeability: Manage your Mind – Change your Life – on Amazon

If you like listening to our show we would love you to leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher – like Alex did – thanks Alex – really appreciate it!

alex 18 butterfly from the UK – October 23rd 2015

Brilliant Podcasts - 5 stars

"I look forward to listening to these podcasts in the morning on my way to work. They really help me feel positive towards the day ahead! Thank you so much for making these podcasts and please don’t stop."

Last week we gave you the ultimate guide to recognising toxic people and relationships.

Now it’s all very well recognising toxic people and the characteristic behaviours of these relationships, but it’s not much good if you can’t deal with them.

So this week we thought we’d look at those emotionally draining vampires and the process of dealing with toxic relationships.

“You let go of a toxic and unhealthy relationship not because you are weak, not because you no longer love the other person, but because you are strong enough to understand that there are times when two people will be a lot happier if they go separate ways than if they stay together.”

So how do you deal with toxic relationships, toxic people and their behaviour?

By literally detoxifying! Or as the dictionary would define it:

“a process or period of time in which one abstains from or rids the body of toxic or unhealthy substances.”

And we like that definition of ‘detox’ for that is sort of what you are doing here.  Taking time out: “a process or period of time in which one abstains from or rids the body of the toxic source” (in this case the person).  It’s a process of distancing and this can take the form of mental, physical or emotional detachment.

So this could be someone you work with, or a member of your family.

And in this instance, the approach would be about how we manage these people and their behaviours.

Essentially a process of controlling what you can and eliminating what you can’t.

We’ve identified 15 ways that can help you can do just that. 

1. Realise that you are more in control than you might believe. Toxic people will typically focus on problems rather than solutions. And what is it that they want from you in that situation? They want you to join in this conspiracy, so you can typically find yourself listening to these negative people and being sucked in to their negativity. To overcome this, set limits in your mind to this type of behaviour and then at the end of that time distance yourself from the behaviour or person. You can combine this with another useful technique, which is to ask the person how they would solve the problem they are complaining about.  This redirects their attention in a more productive way and makes them more responsible for their actions and resolving them.
2. Rise above the behaviour. Rather than reacting to the irrational behaviour, or finding yourself getting caught up in the emotion of it all, view it as an experiment with you as the experimenter and the toxic person as the subject of the experiment. See in your mind if you can identify some of the behaviours we identified last week – as a scientist noticing and noting down the subject’s response.  This will keep you more distanced from the toxic behaviour and less likely to be drawn into the drama. It’s a sort of emotional distancing. So in this dispassionate state you can have thoughts in your mind like ‘O look, there’s that person behaving, negatively - or look they’ve just tried to manipulate or exaggerate the situation.  And if you want to get really scientific, you can mentally observe your own behaviour – observing how you might go about trying to justify your own behaviour, for example.
3. Establish your limits. Just because you live or work with a person doesn’t mean you have to put up with every aspect of their behaviour. The first key to this is to recognise a toxic person’s behaviour patterns and then you can go about establishing what you do or don’t put up with. In any situation we interact more with some people than others (often on the basis of how much we like that person’s company) – so have limits on the amount of interaction time you’ll have with that person and then stick to it.  This can be quite tricky but do it consciously and on the basis of you being in charge of it, as almost certainly your limits may well be probed or tested.
4. Stop trying to please the person and pretending their behavior is ok - in your attempts to get them out of their mood (whatever that is) or gee them up. Toxic people recognise that decent people like you will go to great lengths to ‘please’ and if your attempts aren’t working or lasting long then maybe it’s time to stop. So distance yourself from them and come back to them when their mood has shifted.
5. Don’t continually justify your actions. In inappropriate toxic behavior the person will often project their own feelings onto you. For example, they might say – Why are you in a bad mood today, when you certainly felt you weren’t in a bad mood. In this situation remember - you don’t need to justify or defend yourself or deal with a false accusation.
6. Be aware of the characteristics of a person’s toxic behavior. In so doing, you can spot more easily the manipulations and can name them. That way there will be less chance of you tying yourself up in knots trying to please them or excessively defending your actions.
7. Know that it’s them – not you! We’ve said it already, that toxic people like to project guilt or imply you’ve done something wrong and guess what, as decent people we feel that guilt. But it’s important to understand this is not about you in this instance, it’s about them projecting their feelings onto you.
8. Evaluate the relationship – ultimately, in any relationship you need to see if it’s doing you more harm than good. So evaluate the relationship, embrace the ideas that come from this evaluation and take action on that. If it really isn’t good for you, chances are you’ll know that on some level.
9. Discuss your feelings with the other person – Tell the person how you feel in an assertive (not aggressive) way. So for example you could say something like: “When you do/say/act ________, I feel ________. What I need is ___________ (and here you would lay out the boundaries you would like from that person). It’s also helpful to add something such as - the reason why I am sharing these feelings and needs with you is _____________. (Because I love you, I want to build a healthy relationship with you.)
10. Set and maintain your boundaries. Once you’ve set those boundaries. Maintain them. In the end, this is a process of self-preservation, so focus on taking care of yourself.
11. Find ways in which you can protect yourself from their toxic behaviour, such as those we’ve already outlined.
12. Take time for yourself – toxic behaviour can be exhausting, particularly in work situations where we feel obliged to deal with that person in a professional manner. So take time to recuperate and excuse yourself if need be to give yourself the breathing space to recharge your batteries.
13. If need be - distance yourself from that relationship. This can be physically, emotionally or mentally distancing yourself.
14. Ultimately, if their behaviour towards you doesn’t change, or you find it just too difficult, release them by letting the relationship go – this may be difficult and indeed painful but you may just need to move forward with your life and give yourself room for healthier relationships which will encourage you to grow.
15. And finally, if it’s an abusive relationship, seek professional help.

Hear us discuss all this and more in episode 86 of the Changeability Podcast and be certain to catch last week’s episode on ‘How to recognise toxic people and relationships’.   After all, if you can’t spot it, how can you deal with it?  Until next time.

You’ve probably heard of the phrase toxic person, and are aware at least of the importance of not surrounding yourself with this type of person. Particularly, if you consider:

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” ~ Jim Rohn

And one of those five is either someone you’re living or work closely with and has a toxic personality. 

The dictionary definition of toxic is a poisonous substance with the synonyms: dangerous, unsafe, harmful, destructive and even malignant (with connotations of evil, or hateful).

If we apply this to the term toxic person we might consider this to be a person who is dangerous, harmful or destructive to us as an individual.

The Urban Dictionary gives a rather nice definition of a Toxic Person as being:

“Used to describe a person who is tainted by a subconscious malevolence or psychosis that affects the lives of those who come into contact with them.”

But we’d probably put it less strongly than subconscious malevolence or psychosis and describe it as behaviour which drains you - the receiver of this toxic behaviour - of energy and life.

A person causing social tension or indeed unpleasantness, might be described as having a toxic personality, for example. 

It is of course important to separate the behaviour from the person. It’s not the person in their entirety who is toxic, rather it is their behaviour which is toxic.

And it’s also worth pointing out, it is your response to their behaviour, i.e. the power you are giving that behaviour in your mind that determines whether or not they are toxic to you. 

Not such a comfortable thought!

Perhaps of more comfort then is the fact that you always have the power to choose your thoughts and responses to that behaviour however difficult that may seem.  And it’s important to recognise that both the person displaying the behaviour and the person who might be on the receiving end – both play a part or a role in the toxic interactions.  So if you feel you are on the receiving end, it is equally necessary to consider your own personal role as well.

Toxicity – a great word isn’t it? 

“The degree to which a substance (or person in this case) can damage an organism (or in this instance another person) as well as the effect on the substructure” – Wikipedia

(Note, our additions are in brackets)

In that definition, the actual word refers to the effect on the whole organism, such as a person, as well as the substructure of the organism. 

We even hear that effect on part of us in the language people sometimes use to describe toxic behaviour, saying things like:

“His behaviour does my head in!”

And we know that having a toxic person around can have quite an effect on a group of people. Within an organization, like the workplace, for example.

And maybe the toxicity of the individual relates to the amount of contact, or degree of proximity or closeness you have to that toxic person. Or the amount of credence, you give to that person’s behaviour.

It is quite incredible, how one person can affect so many others around them. 

Often the person has been deeply hurt or is suffering themselves, and on some level are unable to take responsibility for that hurt and suffering and the subsequent problems that causes in their life. So they may typically project their behaviour onto others.

Here it’s useful to separate the behaviour of the toxic person from the behaviour you find yourself enacting when you’re dealing with it.

Typically, the toxic person will exhibit some or all of the following characteristics.

They might:

• Create drama in their lives and the lives of those around them. ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened to me again…!’
• Be jealous and envious of others fortunes and complain about their own lot in life. ‘Well, you’re alright – things like that never happen to you.’
• Try to manipulate or control others – ‘Don’t you find that so and so (whoever that might be) really gets on your nerves?’
• Be very needy (it’s all about them!)
• Use other people to meet their needs
• Have very narcissistic parents who have fanned this behaviour, or indeed allowed it to go unchecked
• Be extremely critical of themselves and others
• Indulge in substance abuse or harm themselves in other ways
• Not own their feelings – it’s someone else’s fault, or they will project their feelings and thoughts onto you. So, for example, if that person is angry they won’t take responsibility for the anger themselves rather they might accuse you of being angry with them. ‘What have I done to upset you today?’ – When you weren’t even aware of having done anything!
• Be typically prone to exaggerate. You know the sort of phrases: ‘You always react in this way’. Or ‘You never side with me!’ And they’re often rather good at remembering the one occasion when you did react in that way or didn’t side with them as evidence that your behaviour is like that as a rule.

So, we’ve looked at the toxic behaviour of the so called ‘toxic person’

This could be characterised in the following ways or behaviours:

• Overly justifying and defending your own feelings when you’re in their company.
• Trying to prove yourself to them or continually tying yourself in knots to please.
• Wondering what you’ve done to upset them or why they’re ignoring you.
• The toxic behaviour can colour your day and behaviour.
• Feeling as if this relationship is one sided and you are the only one contributing to it.
• Having to choose between them and something else “If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t go to that (whatever that is), but you’d stay and look after me.”
• Whatever you do with that person appears to be wrong!
• Every day is like another challenge, where you’re trying to modify your behaviour to suit their expectations or prove your worth.
• You feel uncomfortable around that person – they restrict your ability to say what you want to say, to have a meaningful, mutual two-way conversation of respected views.
• In your mind, you’re ‘walking on egg-shells’ so to speak when you’re in their company – always weighing carefully what you’re going to say.
• You feel like you are being controlled, or are overly controlling

Tell-tale signs include:

• Feeling like you’re not ‘good enough’ as the other person can be constantly putting you down.
• A lowering of your own self-esteem, which is not a good basis for self or personal development.
• Feeling like the person who you’re living or working with is not working for your own best good.
• You compromising your own ideals and goals, or that they are significantly secondary to the needs of this other person.
• No longer recognising your true self, because you are tying yourself in knots to please someone else. You are in effect giving away your own power to that other person.
• Sustaining that relationship long after that relationship has ceased to be of value or benefit to you – in an attempt to not be seen to have ‘given up’ on it.
• Not being allowed to grow and change – or whenever you try to grow, you’re met with objections or indeed drama by that other person’s behaviour which takes you off course in your process of change.

Hear Kathryn and Julian discuss how to recognise toxic people and relationships and their own experiences in the latest episode of The Changeability Podcast.

We’ll discuss the tricky task of ‘How to deal with toxic people and relationships.’

But in the meantime let us know if you recognise these behaviours where you are. We’d love to read or hear your comments below.

The heady heights of a budding relationship can quickly fall into the treadmill of something more humdrum and yet it doesn’t have to be that way.

So, what makes better relationships in both life and business?

Well who better to ask than a relationship coach.

Susie Miller, known internationally as The Better Relationship Coach is an Author, Speaker and Coach. She is dedicated to helping people create better relationships and is the bestselling author of Listen, Learn, Love: How to Dramatically Improve Your Relationships in 30 Days or Less! She teaches us that by being willing to listen, open to learn and therefore ready to love – truly, deeply and kindly – any and all relationships can be reignited beyond our imagination.

Over the last few weeks of the Changeability Podcast we’ve been exploring the many facets of love and relationships: 

• In episode 80 – Celebrate Love, we took a light-hearted look at love in all its many forms in today’s world.
• Episode 81 – turned our attention to self-love. What is self-love and what are the signs that we don’t always love ourselves, plus six reasons why you should
• Episode 82 taught us 10 ways to build the self-love habit
• And finally, last week we looked at the fascinating topic of rituals and how to build self-love rituals into your life, to become a happier, more fulfilled, confident and effective person, with more self-esteem and a better sense of our own self-worth.

With all that talk of self-love, we thought our mini-series on love and better relationships with ourselves deserved to be broadened to include better relationships with our loved ones and those other key relationships we have with friends and work colleagues.

So to help us ‘put deposits in our relationship bank’, we invited Susie Millar to come and speak on that very subject of better relationships, in episode 84 of the Changeability Podcast. And what a great interview it turned out to be.

“Courage doesn’t always roar.  Sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day that says, I will try again tomorrow.”  ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

Hear your hosts Kathryn and Julian interview Susie and discover: 

• How important love and relationships are to making changes in life
• How difficulties in these areas impact all aspects of our lives
• Why relationships are the ‘currency of today’
• How, with all the pressures of everyday life, we go about creating and sustaining lasting and meaningful, better relationships
• The importance of ‘intentionality’ in our relationships
• Why we can easily find ourselves taking our relationships for granted
• Why we need relationship goals, and concrete examples of what those goals would look like
• Susie’s take on a ‘hierarchy of relationships’ and the need to be ‘present’ in your relationships
• How to achieve balance between the different types of relationships we have, with our spouse or partner, our children, business and work colleagues and friends
• How much of our relationships goes on in our mind
• Plus, practical tips on how we can improve all our relationships
• All this, and a little extra bonus for Changeability Podcast listeners you’ll want to check out.

• Susie’s website – susiemiller.com – the Better Relationship Coach
• Susie’s book – Listen, learn, love – How to Dramatically Improve Your Relationships in 30 Days or Less!
• Susie’s offer to Changeability listeners – susiemiller.com/brilliantliving

Love yourself if you want to be a happy, fulfilled, confident, effective person, able to give and receive love, have self-esteem and a good sense of your self-worth.

But it’s one thing to understand this intellectually and quite another to really know and believe it. One of the best ways to accelerate a self-love habit is through using self-love rituals. Practicing self-love rituals is an easy enjoyable way to implant and build your self-love habit and behaviour until it becomes natural. Today we look at 11 self-love rituals to get you started, but first what’s so special about rituals?

A ritual involves a series of actions, sometimes in a prescribed order – which are a type of behaviour regularly and invariably followed by someone – in this case you!

Because that’s what we’re after isn’t it – a way of behaving you do regularly and invariably, habitually and consistently. 

That’s why developing rituals is powerful, because rather than leaving it to randomness and chance or how we’re feeling on a particular day, by creating rituals we build them into our life and are more likely to do them. Once you’ve created the ritual you don’t have to think about it – it’s part of a system. It’s internalised.

Rituals will supercharge your habits and are better than habits in some ways. You can encompass more than one habit within a ritual and because rituals focus on specific ways of doing something, they are very focused.

Apart from building the habit, the other great thing about using rituals is that by following a set way of doing something you’re creating space and time in your life for it.  Just doing these rituals will send your brain the message that this is important to you – you matter.

These rituals we’re talking about of themselves nothing out of the ordinary. You might think that’s not a ritual that’s just how I’m spending my evening. Great if that’s the case – but by virtue of thinking of it as a ritual and labelling it as a ritual – it makes it a thing. It raises it up out of the everyday and mundane and it becomes something more.  It becomes that thing that you do, and what’s more you’re doing it with intention.

Most of these self-love rituals fall into the category of how to spend ‘you’ time.  This is time you put aside where you focus on yourself. Scheduling ‘you’ time is one of the key self-love habits. These rituals are a great way to help you do this. How you interpret them and make them your own will depend on your lifestyle, situation and preferences, but we’ve included a few suggestions to give you the idea.

1. Relaxing or pamper time

• Spa
• Proper moisturise and self massage
• Brush your skin
• Take a long bath or shower

1. Nurture / nourish time

• Self-development
• Visit a museum
• Watch a documentary,

1. Joy time

This will mean many different things to different people. It doesn’t really matter what it is – what matters is that you make a ritual and habit of scheduling time to do something that gives or brings you joy.

• Something just on your own or with others.
• Volunteering
• Get in the zone writing a novel or book
• A hobby like painting, sketching, or a sport
• Even better if it’s something you’re good at so you’re building your self-esteem at the same time.
• Go for a walk in the country or around the city
• Go to see a great film, show or play

Schedule it to make it a ritual. It doesn’t have to be the same thing every day or for the same amount of time every day.

Make a ritual of asking yourself – what am I doing today that it going to bring me joy.

1. Laugh time

• Read a funny book or cartoon
• Watch comedy TV program or film
• Go to a comedy club
• Listen to a funny podcast

The power of laughter is immense. 

You’re telling yourself you deserve to laugh – you deserve to be happy.  Sometimes when we’re stressed or not feeling very loving towards ourselves we almost don’t feel right doing lots of laughing and having fun – especially if others are suffering – but we all deserve to be happy and making laughter a goal for your day or a ritual will help nudge it up the list and keep it on your radar.

1. Gratitude time – for yourself

Of course at BrilliantLivingHQ.com we’re big on gratitude and appreciation of what’s going on in our lives. It’s one of the most efficient and pleasing ways to ground us in our present, but more often than not it’s about other people and things around us.  The difference with this self-love appreciation ritual is it’s about self-appreciation. 

• If you already practice appreciation each day e.g. you write a list every day keep going but ensure at least one item out of your three or however many you do is just about you.
• Or create a separate note of 1 to 5 things you appreciate about yourself today.  It can be something you’ve done – maybe something you did well today, something nice someone said to you – a compliment or feedback – or something you appreciate about yourself.
• For example – your body might not look exactly the way you’d like it to look in every aspect, but it sure does an amazing job of keeping you alive. There are hundreds and thousands of things to appreciate about it – so you will never be stuck again for something to appreciate about yourself.

It’s not always easy, we tend to feel a bit funny about writing down what we like about ourselves. It goes back to the old idea some of us were brought up with that there’s something unseemly about blowing your own trumpet or fishing for compliments. But this ritual will help you counteract those unhelpful beliefs.

And gratitude and appreciation stop you taking things for granted, like how amazing your body and you really are.

1. Coffee, tea or smoothie break

• Take a break – on your own or with a friend, colleague, partner or family
• Make the conscious decision to take ten (or longer) 

1. Meditation

• Being mindful is one of the best ways of loving ourselves.
• Practice living in the here and now – not worrying about the future or ruminating on the past – but being present with your thoughts.
• Spend a few minutes in mindfulness meditation.
• Focus on your breathing and observe the thoughts as they come up and let them go.
• Don’t judge your thoughts but just be with them and let them go.

1. Affirmations

Affirmations are one of our favourite rituals.

• Affirmations are positive statements that affirm (or make firm) the behaviours and ways of thinking and being that help us be the person we want to be and achieve how we want to be.
• You can use affirmations for anything but they are by their very nature a great self-love ritual because they have all the essential elements of a great self-love ritual.
• They are repeatable – indeed their efficacy relies on repetition – it’s the constant repetition that helps to counteract previous thoughts and beliefs and starts to build and reinforce the positive affirming statements that you want to make into your new way of thinking.
• They are very personal – they relate to you and your thoughts.
• Some people might say that by using affirmations you’re reinforcing what you don’t like about yourself – but it’s the opposite. You’re accepting that this is how things are now and opening the door to creating new thought patterns and beliefs that will serve you well – this is a loving thing to do for yourself.
• This is putting yourself first so you can become more effective at something or happier or more fulfilled in some way – which will have a positive effect on others but it is primarily about you and how you feel.
• We start off our Brilliant Living™ affirmations and suggest you do it too with with the words ‘I fully love and accept myself’. This is an immensely powerful statement of self-love.

If you want to be more loving towards yourself, start with our Brilliant Living™ affirmations for love.  Treat yourself (they’re very reasonable) to bring more love into your life, including love for yourself.

1. Food self-love rituals

• Be intentional with a meal and make it into a ritual – so you’re intentionally feeding yourself health-giving food
• Instead of rushing to get something on table, take your time to do something special or different (maybe bake a cake). Put some nice music on and accept it’s going to take you an hour and that you’re going to enjoy the experience.

1. Pet time

• Walk, cuddle, play with or groom your dog or cat or talk to your budgerigar

You might not get this if you don’t have a pet – but if you do have one you’ll know what we mean!

1. Say ‘I love you’

• Tell yourself ‘I love you’ everyday
• Look in the mirror and say it out loud
• It’s like an affirmation but is worth stating separately.
• Say it first thing in the morning or last thing at night or both. 

That’s enough to be going on with for now.  We would love to hear your suggestions which you can leave in our Facebook group or on our Facebook page.

We’re not suggesting you do them all every day (but how great would that make your day!) But make some ‘you’ time that is non-negotiable. Decide what’s going to be in that ‘you’ time, and it might include 1, 2, or 3 of these self-love rituals.

Have a lovely time this week being purposeful about it. That’s the secret to all of this - remembering to do it and bringing it to your awareness on a daily basis so it becomes a ritual and then a habit.

Listen to episode 83 of the Changeability Podcast to hear us talk about all of this and more.

• Episode 82 -10 ways to build the self-love habit
• Six reasons to love yourself
• Episode 81 - Self-love
• Join our free Changeability Facebook Group
• Like our Brilliant Living Facebook Page
• BrilliantLivingHQ.com/affirmations-products to find our affirmations including your love affirmations