How to manage the voices in your head

In my last post I suggested that you have a voice(s) in your head that are generally critical and unhelpful, and ultimately prevent you from being as successful as you want to be, and that there are many ways that we can quieten the critical voice so we can hear ourselves think, make better decisions and actually achieve what we want to.

Today’s strategy is to embrace the message.

Have you ever had a child that continually calls your name attempting to attract your attention because it wants to tell you something?

A great friend of mine, we’ll call her Lucy, who lives on a farm once told me of a story of how she put her child in the car and as she was driving off the child started saying “Mummy chicken” Lucy replied “yes the chickens are at home”, really ignoring her daughter. Her daughter’s cries became louder “Mummy Chicken” and louder “Mummy chicken”. The more Lucy ignored her daughter the louder her cries became; eventually she was shouting “Mummy Chicken”. Lucy stopped the car only to discover that one of their pet chickens was in the back of the car.

If Lucy noticed that her daughter had a message, and listened to it she would have saved herself a lot of time and effort that she spent driving home again to return the chicken.

And so it is with our critical voice, if we listen to what it wants to tell us it will go away. I invite you next time you hear your critical voice to embrace it by saying “Thank you for speaking up, I know you have something really valuable to tell me or to make me be aware of, what is it you want me to know?”

Listen to its answer and thank it once again.

AS you develop a habit of embracing the message your critical voice has, always assuming it has something positive or purposeful to offer you, notice what happens. It will soften, become less critical and much more supportive.

You now have two new ways to approach your critical voice. More will follow over the next few postings

Ways to quieten a critical internal voice

Notice it

Embrace the message

If before then you have noticed that you have very noisy critical voices in your head that are stopping you from doing or being something you want to, call me and I will enable you to keep them quiet permanently. Call me on 07989 757884 or e mail jane@healthyandwealthy.co.uk

If you have any critical voice stories do please share them with me on the comment box below.

Simple steps to manage your critical voice

In my last post I suggested that you have a voice(s) in your head that are generally critical and unhelpful, and ultimately prevent you from being as successful as you want to be.

You could be considering asking someone out on a date only to change your mind when the voice in your head says “She will never say yes, she is gorgeous and you are so ordinary” The sad thing is you will never know if she would have said ‘yes’ because the critical voice put you off.

Or at work you could be about to suggest a treatment plan with implants and cosmetic work only to change your mind at the last minute and offer a denture because your critical voice tells you “don’t be stupid, look at them they can’t afford that.” And you will never know if they could.

By now you will have begun to consider

· When the critical voice in your head start to talk

· What it says to you?

· How you respond to what the voice is saying?

I would like to introduce some of my favourite ways to quieten your critical voice, so you can begin to make better decisions and take more profitable actions whether at work or in your personal life.

Option 1 - Notice it

This may seem over simple and yet it is a powerful way to dis-empower the critical self talk, all you need to do is pay attention to when it appears and notice that it has done so.

In many ways your critical voice is like an attention seeking child, who will play up and be naughty until they have their parent’s attention and then will quieten down.

Until my next post I invite you to become an observer of your thoughts, and when you notice a critical voice say to yourself “I have spotted one, that was a critical voice”. No judgement needed about what it is saying, just notice it. You may choose to write down what it says, and when it crops up or you may not either way is fine, it is the noticing that is important. The process of noticing the critical voice as soon as it arrives, is usually enough to encourage it to become quiet.

In my next post I will explore how to embrace the message.

If before then you have noticed that you have very noisy critical voices in your head that are stopping you from doing or being something you want to, call me and I will enable you to keep them quiet permanently. Call me on 07989 757884 or e mail jane@healthyandwealthy.co.uk

If you have any critical voice stories do please share them with me on the comment box below.

How to manage the voices in your head

It has often been said that the digest problems in dental practice are caused by what is going in the six inches between the principal’s ears.

Whether you are conscious of it or not you set the tone of the practice and determine the culture, behaviours, attitudes and ultimately the success or failure of your practice.

I can remember very clearly when one of my coaches told me “Whatever is happening in your practice you are responsible.” It was a tough message for me to listen to and digest.

What I have come to realise for myself and recognise in my clients is that the way we are, the things we do, what we believe about ourselves and others and much more is determined by the little voice(s) that are continually jabbering in our head.

“I don’t have voices in my head” I hear you say, precisely it was that voice that told you that which I a referring to.

For most of us we are blissfully unaware that there is a voice continually chatting away, it is so prevalent that we have grown used to it and no longer are consciously aware of it, and therein lies the danger.

What I have discovered for myself and with clients is that for most of us the voice(s) are really critical, telling us things like,

“You are not good enough.”

“You don’t deserve that”

“You will never be successful”

“You look fat and ugly in that outfit”

Does any of this sound familiar?

The other time you may become aware of the voice(s) in your head is when you are having a conversation with someone else, when the voice starts to judge what the other person, preventing you form really listening to what the have to say.

For example as you attempt to listen you may be aware of it saying

“I don’t believe them they are lying”

“They are really full of themselves today”

“When are they going to tell me something of interest?”

Over my next couple of blog posts I am going to share some ideas with you that will enable you to dis-empower your little voices.

And for now I would like you just to pay attention and notice

• · When does the critical voice in your head start to talk?
• · What does it say to you?
• · What happens as a result of what the voice is saying?

If as a result of this post you have recognised how debilitating your critical voice is, and you would like to dis-empower it now, please call me on 07989 757884 or e mail me jane@healthyandwealthy.co.uk

Open wide: dentists get help from space

My contact at the European Space Agency sent me this. thought you may be interested.

click here to find out more.

The top 10 reasons you should put your prices up in a recession.

The pundits have been telling us for a long time that there is a recession and many businesses, some dentists included, are slashing their prices in response to the fear of losing patients.

Be warned there have been several businesses that have gone bust because slashing prices was their strategy to make sales and it backfired terminally. An example could be Sun4u that ceased trading this summer after offering holidays at low prices and very small deposits. The cash they were bringing in could just not cover their expenses.

In this series of blogs I am going to be offering ten reasons why you should be considering putting your prices up rather than down in the current economic climate. Controversial, I know. These are only ideas for you to consider and as your coach it is important that I encourage you to consider all perspectives so you can make a truly informed decision about your prices.

Before I start my caveats are as follows

• · You review your personal and practice finances monthly and you know your income and expenses in real time.
• · You are drawing a fair and reasonable salary from the business.
• · You are monitoring the treatments you provide, patient numbers, treatment plan conversion rates.
• · You are offering high quality dentistry. I am not talking about makeovers, all the dentistry you do from a simple occlusal composite, to a full mouth rehabilitation is done with skill, expertise, professionalism and care.
• · You are and your team are skilled communicators and are able to elicit what your patients ‘wants’ are as well as diagnosing what their ‘needs’ are.
• · You and your team are proud of the treatment you offer and the service you provide.

• · Your surgery is clean, modern, and reflects the high quality of the treatment you provide.

If you are not doing all of the above, why not?

The list above vital in any economic climate and even more so when you are facing economic pressure from the economy and your competitors.

Here are the top 10 great reasons why you should increase your fees in a recession

• You’ll make more money, with less treatment.
• Provide higher quality treatment
• Patient smell desperation and don’t buy
• Easier patients.
• More time for marketing and re-creation.
• Don’t drive away your ideal clients
• Minimise your opportunity-cost.
• Builds your reputation and sets higher expectations.
• Provide treatment and service you are really proud of.
• Investment is attractive

More details to follw in my next postings

I would love to know you initial comments, can you or should you put your prices up in a recssion?

The anatomy of a dental practice

A number of my clients have been asking me to help them with reorganising the structure of their practice to;

• · Improve efficiency
• · Improve communication
• · Prevent duplication of duties
• · Prevent essential tasks ’falling through the net’
• · Improve responsibility and accountability
• · Enhance understanding of the business of dentistry
• · Promote team work.

This is what we have come up with so far.

I would really appreciate your comments and feedback.

Click here to view the organisational chart.

Leadership skills and business owners

Last week I spent some time with a number of business owners and we were discussion the importance of a business owner being a leader and having leadership skills.

But what does it mean to be a leader and what are leadership skills?

As a group of business owners we realized that our leadership responsibilities are;

• Setting the priorities and vision for the business
• Collecting and reviewing the relevant data, ensuring that action as a result
• Installing the rhythm of the business, the procedures, systems, meetings, energy, culture etc.
• Spending the time looking for, finding or creating the X factor. The product, process or paradigm which is the difference that makes all the difference.

I would love to know what qualities you think makes a business owner a great leader. Comment on my blog to let me know what you think.