The UK’s TV show Strictly Come Dancing has been the centre of a lot of excitement recently. John Sergeant, the most popular yet the worst dancer has resigned. Many people have quite strong opinions on whether or not he should have gone. None the less he is clearly quite happy with his decision. For him it was very clear that it was his time to back out rather than continue with the competition. Obviously it was a big decision to make and he was going to upset and please people whether he chose to stay or …

So you want to be successful.
Well the first thing you need to identify is what does ’success’ means to you? Is it something in your personal life, career, health, environment, relationships, or something else? It may be several areas. This video might help you to focus. You need to clearly identify what your goal is and visualise it happening. You’ll probably start to do this quite naturally but take it further. Give yourself some time to sit down quietly, close your eyes and picture your success. What are you wearing? …

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”, if only that were true sometimes. We all know how it feels when someone important to you says something that puts you down. It can make you feel very bad about yourself, distract you from other things and sap you of your energy. It can even make you cry or extremely angry. So words are powerful, and it is not only what other people say to you that can have that kind of effect. Your own self-talk is …

Do you want to lose weight, get fit, give up smoking, change your personal relationships, or changesome other area of your life that involves behaviour change? Well, whatever you would like to change it is worth having a look at this theory. Prochaska and Di Clemente (1986) identified the Cycle Of Change as a process that people go through as they change their behaviour. Many organisations that support behaviour change adopt this theory as an approach, such as ASH Scotland who use this diagram of the cycle of change.
It is a …

Michael Jordan said “you have to expect things of yourself before you can do them” and that’s what confidence is all about, your expectations of yourself. Here are my top tips for increasing your confidence.

Re-frame negative self-talk. It’s almost second nature to many of us to put ourselves down, such as “don’t be so stupid!”. When you catch yourself doing this then put a positive slant on what you are saying such as “that’s new to me!”.
Act ‘as-if’ it has already happened. Imagine as vividly as possible that you have …