What You Can Learn From Retail Therapy.

Let’s face it, we all love a bit of Retail Therapy every now and then, some more than others.  But what is it that makes an experience that we will want to keep coming back for time and time again.

Obviously there’s a lot that goes into making a Brand and any number of reasons as to why we would want to keep shopping with 1 particular Brand over another.  But I believe the main reason why we love going in to certain stores more than others is their sense of “Identity”

Identity is at the very core of how they see themselves.  Identity is more than just how a store looks, it’s more than how the products look or even how they make you feel.  It’s more than just how the staff act and how they interact with their customers.  Identity is all of these things and more.  Identity is mindset which drives every aspect of the business.  It’s that “feeling” part of your shopping experience that you can’t quite put into words.

When I think of my favourite Retail Therapy experiences, I think of places such as Aveda, Lush and Dusk.  I absolutely LOVE their products.  I love how they look, I love the quality that goes in to them, I love how they make me feel when I use them, and I love the feeling that I get when I walk into a store.  They all have exceptional service from the moment you walk in.  It’s this deep seeded belief in who they are as a company that permeates every aspect of their business.  When they develop products, they’re asking, “Is this consistent with who we are as a brand?”  When they’re designing the layout of the stores, they’re asking the question, “Is this consistent with who we are as a Brand?”

It filters down from the very top of the company to the people who serve you in the stores.  We all know the difference between someone who can scan your products, swipe your card and say have a nice day as opposed to someone who we really feel has a genuine interest in US enjoying the experience of buying from them. 

I’m sure you can think of your own examples of places that you love to go.  But for me, whenever I go to any of these places I mentioned, I enjoy the experience of shopping there every bit as much as I enjoy the products themselves, and I know it’s a consistent experience.  I can walk into any one of these stores and the experience I get each time is as uniquely genuine as the individual that serves me, yet consistent in how good it always makes me feel.

Now here’s the question for today, how can you take this idea of Identity that YOUR favourite store uses and use that in your own life?  Well, when you think of which Brands you really love, and why you love them, I’m sure you’ll find some similarities there.

They are consistent in their sense of identity.  They convey the same message in all that they do.  It’s the same with people.  Whether we like it or not, whether we even realise it or not, we are being judged by how WE consistently act and the message that we convey about ourselves in all that we do.  This is true even if the people around us are unaware that they are judging us, rest assured that at the subconscious level they are noticing what we do and judging us accordingly. 

So today I want you to ask yourself a question, what is the Brand that you are consistently displaying to others.  Are you consistently inconsistent?  People will pick up on this.  Do you have a consistent message that you convey to people, not through what you say, but by what you do.

Whenever you think of ANYBODY there are usually things that come to mind about that person.  What are the things that come to mind when people think about YOU?  This message WILL have an effect of every aspect of your life.  It will affect your personal relationships, your work, your business and just the people you interact with. 

Believe it or not, you already have a subconscious idea of your Brand, of who you are, and your subconscious will make sure that you act in a way which is consistent with your beliefs about who you are.  So ask yourself this question, what is the Brand that you are putting out there.  Is that Brand a good thing which is going to serve you or could be perhaps a bad thing which will hold you back.

Here’s your assignment, describe to me what Brand you’re putting out there.  How does the rest of the world see YOU?

If the Brand that you’re putting out there is a good Brand, then what can you do to take that to the next level to make heighten that experience people get from being around you.  If your Brand is not so good, what can you do to bring about a change in your personal Brand that other people will really notice?

Leave your answers in the comments below….

How To Let Go of Hurt From the Past and Feel Blessed Instead

The really frustrating thing about life can be the fact that it’s filled with PEOPLE!  And people are individuals and we’re all different.  So people will all interpret things and react to things differently, and I know from experience that this can really annoy the hell out of you when you’re expecting people to act in a certain way and then instead they do something which is completely different.

This used to really annoy the hell out of me until I realised that it was NEVER going to change and so to stop myself going insane, I had to change the way that I perceived this instead.

Let me give you a classic example, I used to see things as being either black or white and I believed that people were either fundamentally “Good” or fundamentally “Bad”.  This became really frustrating when you became friends with people who you believed were fundamentally “Good” people.  They would constantly do things which would demonstrate to me that they were “Good” people, their actions would show that they had integrity.  They would do the right thing by me, and they were people that I felt I could rely on.

But then something happens, and they mistreat you or do the wrong thing by you.  Naturally, I felt really hurt by this, but none the less I still believed that they were fundamentally good people.  And this was NOT the sort of behaviour that I would expect from someone who was a good person.  So I assumed that, as a good person, their behaviour was just a momentary aberration from the norm.  I assumed that they would no doubt realise any minute now that their behaviour was out of character and they would, being a good person, immediately rush to apologise to me.

Needless to say this rarely happened.  So I a felt a growing sense of frustration which stemmed from my own stubborn reluctance to realise that someone who I believed to be a “Good” person could sometimes do the wrong thing by you.  Because I refused to believe this, I wasted an enormous amount of time “waiting” for these people to finally one day realise that what they had done was wrong and apologise.

What I finally realised was that I was the one who needed to change my own perception of what was going on.  And it in no way involved “excusing” or “condoning” unacceptable behaviour.  Let’s face it, there are certain things like robbing a bank for example which will never be acceptable behaviour.  But mostly when we feel let down by another person, we’re not generally talking about robbing banks or anything like that.  It’s usually much more subtle than that.

What I realised is that those subtleties were not necessarily good or bad.  They really came down to the individual.  Because people are all different, we all have different upbringings, different life experiences ect.  So we will all generally have a similar ethical stance that says for example that robbing banks is bad.  However, when we look at more subtle things like how we behave, we’ll all have a slightly different idea as to what is acceptable.

So people can sometimes act in a way which would violate what YOU would consider to be acceptable behaviour and yet that very thing may be completely acceptable to them.  That’s not to say that their values are any less than yours it’s just that people are different.

Maybe you can relate to this yourself, I know from my own personal experience that I can certainly relate.  There have been times when I have felt let down and even hurt by the actions of others and yet these people, who are generally good people, will freely admit to what they’ve done but not see anything wrong with it what so ever and in fact will often not even be able to understand why I would be upset by that.  Alternatively, I know I’ve been in the opposite position myself when other people have firmly believed that MY actions were unacceptable and violated what THEY believed to be acceptable behaviour.  Now the interesting thing here is that neither one of us had any misunderstanding of what had ACTUALLY happened.  We could both agree on what had happened and what I had done and yet we both had completely different interpretations of that. 

To ME, what I did was very polite and respectful and no more or less than what any normal person would expect from a normal member of society.  I honestly could not understand how anyone could see this as being anything other than extremely polite and respectful.  And yet from THEIR point of view it was NOT what they had been bought up to believe, based on THEIR upbringing and THEIR life experiences, was acceptable behaviour.  They actually thought that I was being rude and disrespectful.

If other people can misinterpret YOUR intentions, then is it any wonder that what seems unacceptable to you may seem completely normal to OTHER people.  So the takeaway lesson that I learned from this is not to be so quick to judge others based on YOUR view of the world.  YOUR view of the world will be shaped by YOUR upbringing and YOUR life experiences.  It may be hard to accept, but sometimes the things that others do that really hurt us, that we can’t understand how they could ever do such a thing, may in fact be something that they intentionally do with the best of intentions.  They’re not doing it to hurt us, they’re doing it because from THEIR point of view, they think that they’re doing the right thing by us.  As long as we view these things as being either right or wrong then we will continue to have judgement and we will continue to be disappointed and even hurt when others do things to us which fall short of how WE believe they should behave.

Instead you have to look not at what people DO, but instead look at their INTENTION.  From my own personal experience, I know that this has made such a difference to me.  It has completely transformed my own experience of interacting with others.  Having gone from a feeling of being HURT by someone and wondering WHY they would do such a hurtful thing to instead looking at their INTENTION and realising that THEY were actually trying to do something which THEY thought was a good thing.  MY OWN emotions then changed from being HURT by what they had done to instead feeling BLESSED that this person had thought enough of me to do something which THEY thought would be really good for me!

Imagine what a difference this made to me.  Going from feeling HURT to feeling BLESSED!  And how easy was it to do.  It required nothing of the other person, it required only a shift in MY own level of thought.  And in saying that, it’s important to recognise that doing this in no way diminishes the emotions that YOU feel.  When you feel hurt by someone else, that is a very real emotion and if what they do hurts you, then you have every right to feel that way.  What I’m saying is that you have to ALLOW yourself to feel those feeling and acknowledge them, but then look beyond that at what the INTENTION of the other person was.

Now here’s my challenge for you.  Look at YOUR life and ask yourself this question.  When have you felt let down, betrayed or hurt by someone else.  Then look at it from their point of view.  Without in any way detracting from the real emotions that you feel, ask yourself what was that persons INTENTION in doing what they did?  So if you feel HURT by someone else, then allow yourself to feel the emotion of being hurt.  Acknowledge that, you have every right to feel that way.  BUT, then ask yourself the question, what was the INTENTION of the other person in doing what they did.  Let’s say that when you look at it from their point of view you realise that even though this was really hurtful to you, the REASON that they did it was because THEY wanted to do something good for you, something that they believed in their own mind would be beneficial to YOU.  Based on their own world view, they genuinely believed that they were doing something GOOD for you, something beneficial for you.  They genuinely believed that they were being KIND to you and they did it because they CARED.

Now ask yourself, how would you feel if someone did something, not bad TO you but instead good FOR you, something that they did because they cared about you and they wanted to try and help you. 

Now suddenly, without detracting from the real emotions that you felt, you now see this in a whole new light.  You see it as an act of kindness from someone who really cares about you, because they wanted to help.  How would it make you feel to know that you have someone in your life that was prepared to go out of their way to do something good for you, because they care?

Did that change your perception now? 

Leave a comment below to let me know how YOU were able to relate this to an experience that you have had in the past.

Why Discipline is NOT the Answer

One of the most common things that I hear from people in Coaching is that they wish they could be more disciplined.  What I tell people though is that discipline is not the answer.  Discipline can be very beneficial as a short term fix, but it’s not a real long term solution. 

I like to think of discipline as being like a Band-Aid.  A Band-Aid can be good to heal a wound however after a few days, if the wound isn’t healing then it’s a sign of a more severe problem, and you should probably get that looked at.

I tell people that discipline is the same.  Discipline can be great if you need to get up really early at like 5am because you have to go somewhere, however it should only be used as a one off.  If you find yourself constantly needing to be more disciplined than that is a sign of a deeper underlying issue.

Most commonly, that deeper issue is a lack of motivation.  Motivation is the thing which is really going to sustain you in the long term.  The problem with discipline is that it’s very temporary.  If you can discipline yourself to do something once, then as soon as  it’s done, the discipline is gone.  The next time you need to do it, you’ll have to discipline yourself all over again.

When you have motivation though, you have energy which will sustain you through whatever you need to do.  When you are motivated, you don’t need to be disciplined because you are just INSPIRED to do the things you need to do.  When you have motivation, things become effortless and nothing seems like a burden.

Let me give you an example.  Let’s say that you wanted to lose weight and so you decide that you need to discipline yourself to eat right and go to the gym.  What that means is that EVERY TIME you are faced with a decision as to what to eat, you have to discipline yourself to eat the healthy alternative.  When you wake up in the morning and have to decide whether you’re going to stay in bed or get up and go to the gym, you’ll need to discipline yourself to go to the gym EVERY MORNING!

But, if instead you can find your motivation as to why you want to lose weight then that will sustain you.  You’ll no longer have to choose between eating healthy and eating junk food because when you’re motivated it no longer even becomes a question.  You just naturally do those things which are going to lead you towards your goal.  You don’t even have to think about it!  When you’re motivated, you can’t wait to get to the gym to work out because you have your end goal in mind. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you’ll have the motivation to make sacrifices to achieve your goal.  What I’m saying is that when you’re motivated, they won’t seem like sacrifices at all.  You won’t feel like you’re missing out on anything.  Given the choice, you’ll happily choose healthy food over junk food, you’ll LOVE going to the gym so much that you’ll never want to miss out on that.

Now ask yourself the question.  How can you translate that into your life?  Start by making a list of all the situations where you wish you had more discipline.

Now ask yourself, what specific ACTIONS do you wish you were more disciplined to take?  What RESULTS do you believe you would be able to achieve if you were disciplined enough to take those actions?

Now put yourself in the mind space of already having achieved those results.  Describe for me HOW achieving those results make you feel.

What does it say about you as a person that you have achieved those results?

Now, this is where we get more specific.  What I want you to do now is to create a picture of the sort of person who (a) has already achieved the results that you’re trying to achieve and (b) the type of person who just naturally does the things you wish you were more motivated to do.  This person is not doing these things because they are disciplined.  They’re doing them because that’s the type of person who they are.  Doing these things comes naturally to them, they are at the core of their being.

Now visualise this person, grab a random photo off google to put a face to this person if you have to, imagine the sort of person they are.  What do you think they do in the morning when they wake up?  What type of thoughts do you think they have going through their mind on a daily basis?  What are the characteristics that make this person the type of person who is able to effortlessly achieve the results that you want, without needing to be disciplined BECAUSE they have the motivation to do it?   The motivation and passion that they have for achieving this result is at the core of their being, it runs through every cell in their body.

Now take this picture with you in your mind as you go through your day.  From the time you first wake up in the morning until your head hits the pillow again at night.  Now you may begin by asking yourself “What would this person do in this situation?” But that in itself would require discipline, so while it’s fine to ask that question to begin with, that’s not the end goal.  The end goal that we’re aiming for here is not for you to ask what that person would do, but to really FEEL that you are that person.  YOU have that energy, that passion and that motivation flowing through YOU.

How will YOU act throughout your day now that you have incorporated that energy into you?

Leave a comment below to let me know how you’re doing with incorporating this into your daily routine.