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Call center training can take many formats and is relevant to the specific types of customers and call types
to be handled by the agents. However, regardless of the industry and the products or services being
disused, call center reps will always need one type of training: Dealing with angry customers.
Given the fact that most inbound call centers handle complaints, it is only fair to the agent to provide him or
her with the appropriate tools to handle the barrage of frustrated calls they will handle every day. Following
is a short discussion, Free Online Call Center Training perhaps, on how to deal with difficult callers.
Training tip #1 - Starting the call: Each and every call MUST start in a friendly and upbeat fashion. Any
call where the agent does not sound cordial (fake it if you must), and ready to help is already on the road to
disaster. It is much more difficult for a frustrated caller to mistreat a happy sounding rep than one that
sounds like he/she should have gone home hours ago.
Training tip #2 - Putting yourself in the customer's shoes (Empathy): We are all customers of many
establishments, and as such we demand for whatever it is we are buying to meet certain expectations.
When our expectations are not met frustration ensues, which can escalate to outright anger depending on
how well the customer service person handles our complaint. When dealing with angry callers, remember
how it feels to be let down and what you expect from others as they try to address your concerns.
Training tip #3 - Never blame the customer: This point may be hard to follow as many customer issues
tend to be self inflicted; however, it is unwise and unprofessional to put the customer on the defensive.
Moreover, customers should not be expected to know even the most obvious of facts about your product or
service. What may be crystal clear to one person, may be confusing and unfamiliar to another. If the issue
was caused by the customer, he/she will feel better about the situation if you allow the customer time to
realize how the issue came to exist and then partner with him to correct it. No need to rub it in.
Training tip #4 - Don't win: As a customer service agent, your role is to assist people in need, period. If it
weren't for the mishaps and issues that people encounter you would not have a job. Be thankful that
customers run into problems that must be solved with your assistance , and in remembering this fact let the
customer "win" the discussion. It may sometimes be difficult to let callers hang-up thinking that they got one
over you or the company, but in the end that's what mature people do. They allow others to feel good about
their small victories, while understanding the difference between losing an argument and winning a loyal
customer (who will help pay your salary).
Sensory Intelligence
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By Annemarie Lombard, CEO of Sensory Intelligence
I was looking for the craziest, wildest, busiest, most sensory overloaded and insane work environment
… I clearly found it in the call centre, OK, contact centre industry.
The first time I walked into a call centre I was blown away. Although absolutely electrifying for me,
and certainly switching on an extra few brain wires, I immediately knew with certainty that this
environment would be a recipe for disaster for about 20% of the population.
Local and international research shows that 20% of the population are highly sensory sensitive to
information derived from the environment. This means that their DNA and brain circuits have an over-
intake of sensory (see, hear, touch, smell, taste, move) information.
Sensory overload is of utmost relevance to them as they experience the world as too loud, too bright,
too fast, too tight … plainly just too much.
Needless to say the call centre environment is completely overwhelming for them and results in stress,
absenteeism, performance issues and ultimately attrition.
Even though they often manage to put effort into tolerating this environment, it often works for only a
short period of time. Ever thought why the critical period for losing agents is usually within the first 90
days of being employed?
Although our sensory processing takes place in the unconscious parts of our brain functioning, it is
critical for species survival.
Intuitively we learn what works for us and what not, but mostly - and too often - through trial and error.
Your sensory-sensitive call centre agents would only realise this when they have been recruited, trained
and positioned on the call centre seat.
And, suffice to say, thousands of rands later the realisation hits: I hate this job. Research also clearly
corroborates the prevalence of high levels of stress within the industry.
However, when placed in data capturing, e-mail support, or quality assurance, these same individuals
would most often perform at very high levels.
Traditionally, these processes, are usually performed in more contained, less sensory overloaded
sections and require awareness, attention to detail and rigid processing. Your 20% unsuitable front
office callers are well suited for these roles.
My quest as an occupational therapist has been to prove that sensory profiles do correlate with work
performance, absenteeism and attrition of call centre agents.
Correlation results through my doctoral research clearly indicate that your 20% highly sensitive agents
spend longer time on after-call work, have longer holding times and lower quality assurance ratings.
The quest continues…
The four main pillars in the call centre industry are people, premises, processes and technology. They
are obviously all crucial for sustainability and efficiency, but with the human resource allocation being
the biggest hurdle.
Your call centre agent is the key to delivering service, sales or collections, utilising your business
process and operations to capture the essence of your client audience.
Occupational science is a body of knowledge about how we analyse work environments and the people
functioning within them. Goodness-of-fit is the vital key to support the fact that matching your talent
and workforce to the job description and work environment will ensure productive, less stressed, and
sustainable employees.
It just makes plain business sense to ensure a best-fit match for the call centre industry
in particular. The industry is known for high training and operational costs, with agent
attrition and absenteeism a common problem. This impacts on the bottom line for the
company, but also depletes corporate wellness for the individual.
Sensory intelligence has two main objectives for the call centre industry: Firstly, to
ensure return on investments for companies. If you are spending R17264.00 (average industry figure
South Africa 2007) on training an agent, shouldn’t you ensure up-front that they are suited for the
position?
Secondly, a mismatch in the industry impacts on wellness for the agents. Unsuitable agents end up with
a high degree of stress and anxiety which have detrimental effects on health and wellness, and results in
inflated health care costs.
As many agents are young and often find themselves in call centres as an entry level job, the degree of
failure and difficulty to manage have far-reaching impacts on their personal self esteem and confidence.
Therefore, ensure you select agents with more care, and consider their sensory profiles to ensure
sustainability in the environment.
Other considerations to ensure workforce optimisation are also to ensure you have a well set up call
centre with good equipment, enough space, air, ventilation, chill rooms (not glorified tea rooms),
leadership that thinks and acts laterally, and ongoing coaching and development.
The call centre business model works, locally and abroad, with unprecedented growth and has huge job
creation opportunities for South Africa.
How sensory intelligent is your call centre?
Annemarie Lombard is a registered occupational therapist and founder/CEO of Sensory Intelligence.
Contact her on 084 661 1010 or visit Sensory Intelligence for sensory intelligent solutions for your
contact centre.
References:
Emotional dissonance, emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction in call centre workers
K. A. Lewig; M. F. Dollard , European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 2003,
Volume 12, Issue 4, Pages 366 – 392
customer service
customer service, customer support and skills training guide, standards and
customer service code of practice, and complaints handling tips, and poor customer
service case study
Customer service, especially in the shape of a call-centre - is to customers one of the most visible and
significant aspects of organizational performance.
To many organizations however customer service is one of the most challenging and neglected areas of
management, including those with modern call-centres.
For customers the quality of customer service determines whether to buy, and particularly whether to
remain a customer.
Think for a moment how you yourself behave as a customer. You can perhaps think of an occasion
when poor customer service or an unhappy exchange with a call-centre has driven you to leave a
supplier, even if the quality and value of the product or service itself is broadly satisfactory.
The significance of customer service eludes many senior executives, let alone the methods of
establishing and managing customer service standards and quality. Our own experiences as customers
demonstrate all the time that many large organizations fail particularly to empower customer-facing
and call-centre staff, and also fail to design policies and systems to empower customer-facing staff and
enable effective customer service. Often these are defensive strategies because staff are not trusted, and
because competition is feared, or because simply the policy-makers and systems-designers are too far
removed from customers and their customer service expectations.
Pricing strategy also plays a part on customer service - especially strategies which effectively
discriminate against existing customers in favour of new customers, which in certain situations borders
on the unethical, never mind being stupid in a customer service context.
This is strange since by any reasonable measure or criteria - in any market or industry - it costs far
more to gain new customers than to retain existing customers. Neglecting, constraining or failing to
optimise customer services capabilities is waste of great opportunities.
Instead many organizations and their leaders are habitually fixated on sales, marketing, advertising and
promotion - desperately striving to attract new customers - while paying scant regard to the many
customers that are leaving, just for the want of some simple effective customer service and care. We see
this particularly in highly competitive and profitable sectors such as communications and financial
services, where new customers are commonly extended better terms and attention than existing
customers. No wonder customer turnover ('churn') in these industries can reach levels exceeding 25%.
Leaders and spokespeople will blame the competitive market, and the fickleness of customers, but
ultimately when a customer leaves a supplier it's because they are unhappy about the service they are
receiving - otherwise why leave?
The 2007 British Standard Code of Practice for Customer Service, number BS 8477:2007 provides an
excellent basis for understanding, planning or reviewing your customer service approach.
The Code of Practice is summarised and reviewed below.
The full Customer Service Code of Practice is an excellent template for anyone considering how to
address customer services, whether setting up a customer service capability for the first time, or
seeking to improve and existing customer service department or team.
And outlines principles for the Maintenance of effective customer services, entailing:
1. Feedback - staff, customers, systems
2. Audits
3. Benchmarking
4. Complaints
The code of practice also contains an annex covering the Recruitment, Competencies and Training
of Customer Services Employees, also covering motivational factors and recommendations, conduct
and behavioural development. The customer service staff competencies are summarised as:
1. Interpersonal and empathy
2. Communication
3. Handling stress
4. Active listening
5. Team-working
6. Problem-solving and complaints-handling
7. Product and organization knowledge
8. Commitment to aims and values of organization
The 2007 BSI Code of Practice for Customer Service is an excellent template and essential reference
material for anyone involved with introducing or managing customer service.
You can obtain the full BS 8477 Customer Service Code of Practice at the BSI website. Cost is £72 or
half-price for members (prices correct at August 2007).
Here are details of BSI Membership, which will be a useful subscription for anyone routinely
concerned with standards and codes of practice.
don't..
• Make it difficult for people to complain, e.g., long-winded contact method on your website.
• Make it difficult for customer service staff to give feedback and to influence customer service
systems and policies.
• Treat the customer service function like a battery hen farm.
• Fail to have a complaints handling process which you have tested and had approved by
complaining customers.
• Fail to appoint anyone responsible for managing complaints handling.
• Fail to inform staff about the value of complaints and the need to encourage and respond to
them.
• Refuse to escalate complaints and problems, or make escalation to a higher level difficult.
• Refuse to give customers the names of senior managers and executives and their contact details.
• Fail to put free or local-rate customer services phone numbers on your invoices and website.
• Fail to show clearly and make available your head office contact details.
• Fail to expose senior managers and executives to complaining customers.
• Pretend to have a customer service department but merely outsource a basic message-taking
service.
• Offer an automated telephone menu system which excludes appropriate and easy options to
complain.
• Design punitive termination penalties for customers wishing to cancel their contracts and
instruct your customer service staff to use such threats freely and forcefully.
instead do..
Check your culture. This comes from the top and pervades everything. So this is ultimately for the
CEO or the shareholders to start changing if it's not right.
There is little point in implementing a wonderfully robust and logical customer service code of practice
if your culture can't support it.
So this section is really all about culture and particularly how you treat staff ans customers. All the rest
is relatively easy and mechanical for any decent modern management team, because aside from culture,
customer service relies on sensible service and pricing strategies and the processes to sell and deliver
then and to sort out problems. What makes the real difference is how you involve and treat people
within these processes. Which all comes back to culture.
The culture must be one of really honestly respecting and valuing staff and customers. When you have
this culture the human element gets to work: relationships and communications work, problems are
solved, internally and externally people focus on looking after colleagues and customers, rather than
merely working systems, executing processes and adhering to policies. The organisation has life -
becomes organic - rather than operating as an inflexible machine or a set of instructions.
In the context of customer service, a good indication of culture is how easy it is to complain. In lots of
big organizations it's actually very difficult to complain, and even more difficult to complain and be
taken seriously.
You must make it easy for people - customers and staff - to contact you and complain, by email, post
and especially by phone, and to every level in your organization - especially to the CEO.
Executives who never see complaints are deluding themselves. On the pretext of protecting their
precious executive time, countless senior managers and executives are oblivious of what is happening
in their business. Worse still this ostrich-like example teaches all managers that avoiding complaints is
the way to manage customers, which as a customer service strategy is what might technically be
referred to as a load of bollocks. Ask your customers what they think about senior managers and
executives hiding from complaints and most people will use far stronger terms than that.
Executives who hide from complaints also tend to develop a culture among managers and all staff that
is scared of complaints, which naturally causes people to cover up complaints and to distort complaints
and failure statistics even when asked to report on them.
Megalomaniac, autocratic and egocentric leaders are particularly prone to this syndrome, in which
customer satisfaction information is obscured and massaged so that the entire senior management
moves from denial to blissful ignorance, while the customer service staff continue to act as a super-
absorbent firewall, until one day - when the customer churn is nudging 25% - the board finally realises
that they do indeed have a problem, and that the market and the competition and the customers - and
the customer service staff - are not to blame for it. The problem is the leadership: the culture, the
systems, the policies, the strategies - out of step with what the customers need and expect.
Interestingly this stems from the insecurity which drives certain traditional leadership styles and
cultures, in which criticism is seen as a threat rather than a useful reflective and improvement aid. If
you are one of these leaders please go get some therapy before you do any more harm to your staff and
customers. Arrogance and bluster are not effective behaviours by which to run a proper business in the
21st century, let alone to encourage and inspire employees and managers to strive for customer service
excellence.
Instead expose yourself to all the complaints you can find. Remember - you would normally pay a
researcher lots of money for this information. And each complaint gives you the chance to solve a
customer's problem, which often means that you then get to keep that customer for life.
To do this you will need to check that your complaint handling process works for your most awkward
customers and for your most passive customers. This will turn many of your most awkward customers
into your best customers, and some of your most passive customers into awkward customers, but you
will now be receiving complaints, which if you were not seeing any before is a major advance.
With all these new complaints you will need some expert input and ideas about how to improve things.
Lucky for you, your employees are the world's best experts at improving your services to your
customers, so it makes sense to ask for their help.
Obviously ensure your customers' complaints are resolved along the way, and equally importantly, help
the organization to develop the capability (and culture) to identify the causes of problems and to rectify
the root causes, to prevent the problems happening again.
It's a lot simple rwhen you get the culture right. Open all the communications. Encourage complaints.
Fix the problems and the systems. Utilise your people to contribute to the whole process.
Empower and encourage your customer service staff to give feedback about the systems and policies
within which you expect them to work and deliver great customer service. Train and develop and
nurture and love your customer service staff - they are almost certainly your most under-valued and
under-utilized asset. They will perform as you treat them. If you treat customer service staff like battery
hens don't expect them to take much of an interest in your organization.
Think creatively about the emphasis and status you give to the customer service role. Customer service
staff are widely under-valued and under-utilised. They are by nature extremely helpful and loyal
people, capable of doing a lot more for you than they are typically empowered to do. So empower
them, and you will see significant improvements in customer satisfaction, because the experts will be
taking care of it for you.
however..
Yes. However. As we know, things are changing.
People are most certainly now seeking more meaning from their work and from their lives.
People in far flung exploited parts of the world now have a voice, a stage, and an audience, largely
enabled by technology and the worldwide web.
Customers, informed by the increasing transparency and availability of information, are demanding that
organisations behave more responsibly and sensitively.
Increasing numbers of people are fed up with the traditionally selfish character of corporations and
organisations and the way they conduct the themselves.
The growing transparency of corporate behaviour in the modern world is creating a new real
accountability - for the organisations which hitherto have protected the self-interests of the few to the
detriment of everyone and everything else.
Now, very many people - staff, customers, everyone - demand and expect change.
Leaders need now to care properly for people and the future of the planet, not just to make a profit and
to extract personal gain.
And so businesses and corporations are beginning to realise that genuinely caring for people
everywhere is actually quite a sensible thing to do.
It is now more than ever necessary for corporations to make room for love and spirituality - to care for
people and the world - alongside the need to make a profit.
Love, compassion, and spirituality - consideration for people and the world we live in - whatever you
choose to call it - is now a truly relevant ethos in business and organisations.
barbara heyn
Barbara Heyn sees love and spirituality in organisations from the perspective of feminine instincts and
behaviours. This is not to say that men are useless at it; not at all: men, like women, can actually do
anything they put their minds to. Everyone can.
The concept of 'feminine spirit' emphasises that the biggest challenges in modern work and
organisations respond to what we traditionally consider to be 'female' strengths and styles.
Globalisation is creating these new organisational challenges:
• managing and developing global teams - which requires far more sensitive treatment than
traditional localised structures
• approaching cultural diversity as a strength not a hindrance - which requires great
perception, awareness and openness to possibilities
• creating inclusive responsible plans, and making ethical decisions - which requires a strong
sense of what is right and good, including compassion, humanity, and spiritual connection
Most of this is traditional 'female' territory, but it must now part of the 'male' compass too, because
these are the big issues facing all managers, leaders and organisations today.
As such, this is a call for everyone in management and business to be more loving and spiritual - to be
more sensitive and understanding and compassionate - and a warning to all paid-up members of the
Genghis Khan School of Tyrannical Leadership (male or female) to adopt more 'feminine' ways of
doing things.
Sonia Stojanovic is (at time of writing this article) a consultant with McKinsey and Company. She was
previously head of Breakout and Cultural Transformation for Australia's ANZ Bank.
This article was first published on 26 April 2006 and features in Soleira Green's book 'The New
Visionaries - Evolutionary Leadership for an Evolving World'. It is reproduced here with permission,
which is gratefully acknowledged.
Soliera and Santari Green run 'New Visionaries', a focal point for visionary leadership, evolutionary
coaching and self-fulfilment. Visit the website for Soliera Green's book 'The New Visionaries -
Evolutionary Leadership for an Evolving World'.
anasakti (non-attachment)
Topics like the art of living, happiness and well-being have been discussed elaborately in Ancient
Indian Literature (notably Bhagavad Gita).
Asakti (attachment) and Anasakti (non-attachment) are significant concepts related to well-being and
happiness.
Here I elaborate these concepts.
Asakti and Anasakti are indigenous psychological constructs of the East.
The English equivalents of Asakti and Anasakti are attachment and non-attachment/detachment,
although the Eastern meaning of attachment and non-attachment is far deeper than the conventional
English literal interpretation of these words.
Bushan (2005) defines Asakti as attraction towards individual or object with expectation. This often
results in frustration and mental problems.
Anasakti is simply negation of attachment.
Charles T Tart (1997) holds that attachment is about various processes that give more value, attention
and psychological energy to feelings or concepts than to this perception of the actual reality of
situation.
In terms of personal consequences, Buddhism sees attachment as the principle cause of suffering in life.
When one is attached, one becomes slave to rewards in much the same way as the rat in the (Skinner's)
experiment becomes a slave to the pellet box, performing only those actions that bring him token
reinforcement.
Non-attachment or Anasakti, on the other hand, is the systematic practice of not automatically giving
psychological energy to thoughts, feelings, perceptions and desires that come along. When an
individual is unattached to external contacts, he/she finds happiness within his/herself (Bhagavad Gita,
5.21).
In other words non-attachment is the key to 'authentic happiness'.
Non-attachment involves always being able to keep our minds above any turmoil and trials of the
environment. Non-attachment produces equanimity. It has long been referred to by the Vedentists as the
attitude of 'being in the world but not being of it'.
Non-attachment is acceptance of situations without reacting negatively to them. It is a state of mind
that is continuously observing the nature of events and remains unaffected.
The Bhagavad Gita teaches that the one who abandons all attachment to the results of his/her activities,
satisfied and independent, engaged in all kinds of undertakings, yet not concerned with rewards
involved, is truly happy.
Those of us who are accustomed to traditional Western management and organisational thinking might
initially reject this idea, because it appears to suggest that outcomes are not important. However the
true meaning is actually very close to modern Western ethical and humanitarian ideals, i.e., being good
and happy results from doing good things, not from achieving rewards, personally nor for the
corporation. When we focus on reward we are 'attached' and are inherently wrong-minded. When we
focus on simply doing good we are right-minded, unattached and thus are fulfilled.
The term detachment or non-attachment has always been seen in a negative light in the West.
Unlike the common Western notion however, detachment is not about surrender of objects of the world
but about the surrender of desires that create limitations and conditioning of mind.
Nor is detachment a zombie-like state where an individual has no passions, no desires or where he/she
is cold and indifferent. Instead detachment is a state where egocentric desires and fascination for
animate and inanimate objects of the world ends and the person understands the meaning of true love
(or expressed more conventionally, the meaning of purpose, compassion, humanity, etc).
Swami Rama (1965) asserts that love and non-attachment are synonymous.
Resting on the rich eastern literature, and more specifically Indian Yogic Literature which indicates an
obvious link between non-attachment and all positive traits like courage, forgiveness, compassion,
tolerance, gratitude and even happiness, I (CT) am keenly interested in exploring the correlations
between these qualities and Anasakti or non-attachment.
My research work therefore focuses on whether traits like forgiveness, optimism, courage, trust, hope
and other character strengths correlate with Anasakti and to what extent.
The basic aim is to scientifically validate our Eastern Yogic literature, which will at the same time
strengthen general understanding of 'loving' and spiritual qualities as viewed from the Western
perspective.
This research may get us a step closer in attaining what has been very appropriately termed as
'authentic happiness'.
Besides, it will help us in integrating Eastern psychology, which is inherently humanistic and positive,
with the current 'positive psychology' movement (love and spirituality at work in other words).
If the correlation between Anasakti or non-attachment and traits like forgiveness, optimism, etc., can be
scientifically established, the next step would be to design interventions aimed at training people in
practising non-attachment.
Charu Talwar (November 2006)
Supervised by Dr Sudha Banth Panjab University, Chandigarh, India.
i am
relaxation and scripts for self-help, personal change and fulfilment
I deserve to be,
I want to be,
I can be,
I will be,
I am.
If you want to change your life you need to change how you think and change what you do. Self-help,
personal change, being happy: it's up to you. No-one else.
You decide. This is the first step. Self-help starts with you. Self-help and personal change starts with
your realisation that it really is in your own hands, and your decision to do something about it.
Your own self-belief is the key to successful life-change, achievement, contentment, and happiness.
Your own mind, particularly positive suggestion and visualisation, will develop your self-belief, and
your determination to make successful change to your life.
This page will help you begin to change the way you think, feel and act.
Visit it any time you want to boost your self-belief, to relax, and to regain control of your life and
direction.
Print this page and put it above your mirror, above your bed, above your desk, anywhere you'll see it
every day.
Make time - actually schedule some time in your planner or diary to do this. It will dramatically
improve your mood, attitude, and approach to life, and therefore what you get from life.
Positive suggestion and visualisation, combined with deep relaxation, is an easy way to make powerful
positive personal change.
Just going through this relaxation exercise alone will help to change and improve the way you feel. If
you combine the relaxation techniques with a repeated script of positive statements, such as the 'I am'
script below, you will begin change the way you think, and feel, and act, and all that life offers as a
result.
The more you use the relaxation exercise and say or hear the script, then the greater and more
sustainable will be the effect.
The time it takes to change depends on different people. Stick with it and it will become easier, more
natural, more enjoyable, and it will work.
relaxation exercise
1. Sit or lie down comfortably. Properly comfortably. Straighten your back, put your shoulders
back to open your rib-cage.
2. Relax your shoulder muscles particularly. Relax your whole body, and empty your mind.
3. Close your eyes (obviously open them when you need to read the next stage).
4. Take ten deep, slow breaths. Breathe from the pit of your stomach and feel your lungs filling.
5. Focus on your breathing. Feel it getting deeper and slower. Feel yourself relaxing and any
tension drifting away.
6. Relax your shoulders and neck again.
7. Visualise yourself being happy, succeeding, winning, being loved, laughing, feeling good.
8. Relax your forehead, your mouth and your eyes.
9. Allow a gentle smile to appear on your face as you feel a calmness enter your mind.
10.Then say (out load ideally) the words below (a script for personal change) to yourself:
i am
I am good person.
I have integrity.
I do what is ethically right and good.
Whatever life puts before me will be useful experience that will make me stronger, wiser, and more
tolerant.
I am strong enough to understand and make allowances for other people's weaknesses, and their
behaviour towards me. Other people's behaviour is about them, not me.
I focus on the joy of living my life and helping others where and when I can.
I am what I eat and drink, so I eat and drink good things.
I am what I watch and play and listen, so I watch and play and listen to good positive things.
I take exercise which I enjoy. I walk when I don't need to drive or take the bus or train.
I smile and laugh whenever I can - life is good - getting caught in the rain reminds me that it is good to
be alive to feel it.
I forgive other people. Deep down everyone is a good person, just like me.
I am a compassionate and loving, caring person.
I am a good person.
I am.
using and changing scripts - what the 'i am' words mean
The 'I am' element alone is a powerful one because it embodies the sense of self-determination, which
nobody and nothing can ever take away from you, and it emphasises the value of simply 'being'.
We each exist as a person of value and worth in our own right, irrespective of possessions and
achievements. Accepting and reinforcing this concept is good for each of us. This, at its simplest level,
is what 'I am' means.
"There is wisdom in accepting what you are. It is difficult to be what you are not. Being what you are
doesn't require any effort. When you become wise, you accept yourself the way you are, and the
complete acceptance of yourself becomes the complete acceptance of everyone else." (From 'The
Mastery of Love' by Don Miguel Ruiz, with thanks to Allspirit.co.uk)
You can use the relaxation exercise, combined with a script, to change many aspects of your life and
feelings.
You do this by adding, removing, or replacing statements in the script.
Keep the statements positive and in the present tense.
For example, if you want to be more confident, use a statement such as 'I am a confident person' rather
than 'I will be a more confident person' or 'I will try to be a more confident person'.
If you want to stop smoking, use a statement such as 'I am a non-smoker, because I value my life and
body' rather than 'I will try to give up smoking'.
If you do not want to give up smoking, merely to cut down, adjust the script accordingly, for example:
'I smoke only five/ten/fifteen cigarettes a day, because this is improving my health and my life' (better
than smoking twenty or thirty day).
If you keep telling your sub-conscious that you 'are', then in time you will 'be'.
Use script statements that describe yourself as you want to be. Repeating positive scripts, combined
with deep relaxation, will change your behaviour from deep within.
be assured...
Most people judge themselves against entirely artificial criteria. Material success is not what life is
about.
You can change your frame of reference. You do not have to accept a frame of reference that others
have given you.
Many of the most materially 'successful' people are deeply unhappy, yet they strive and search
(unsuccessfully) even harder for more material success.
Most ordinary good, honest 'being' people are fooled into believing that what they have is not worth
anything. Don't be fooled.
The answer to happiness and fulfilment is usually found in achieving a simple acceptance of, and joy of
living, a good life.
Enjoy 'being' and living a good life.
Next time you get caught in the rain, or bump the car, or get a headache - enjoy being alive to feel it
and experience it.
see also
• Kipling's poem 'If'
• The Guy In The Glass
• Ruiz's The Four Agreements
• Carter-Scott's 'rules of life'
• Love and Spiritulity at Work
• Erikson's Psychosocial Development Theory
• Goal Planning - tips and template toolthe free posters for some lovely self-development and
self-belief maxims
• Abstract images for feelings, challenge and changeFantasticat - a visualisation method for
young people (grown-ups too)
• Buddha Maitreya's Japanese Garden and Meditation Centre
• Better Sleep Ideas
• Stress Reduction