Why Do I Have A Fear Of Public Speaking

Why Do I Have A Fear Of Public Speaking?

In many areas of life, the ability to communicate your ideas and to present them in a public forum is essential. If you are good at public speaking, it can help you to grow your business, advance your career, and form a strong network. It can also help you to move people to act on important issues that affect both them and society at large. To do these things, you will have to spend time speaking in public to deliver your ideas or your pitch. Sometimes, fear of public speaking can stand between you and your target audience. At Premier Life Coaching, we can help people to overcome their fear of public speaking so they can derive more benefits in their lives and careers.

What is the fear of public speaking called?

The fear of public speaking is a very common phobia called glossophobia. It appears when you are either expected to give an oral presentation or are in the act of trying to give one. Glossophobia affects an estimated 25% of people. Having a fear of public speaking can keep you from sharing your ideas, talking about your job, and offering solutions to problems. It can hold you back from advancing in your career.

Why people are afraid of public speaking

Having a fear of public speaking is related to how you feel, think, or act when you must speak in public. There are multiple theories of what can cause you to fear public speaking. Four contributing factors have been identified, including the following:

  • Physiology
  • Thoughts
  • Situations
  • Skills

We will address each one below.

1. Physiology

When you experience fear, your autonomic nervous system is aroused because of a stimulus that you view to be potentially threatening. Our bodies prepare themselves when we are confronted with threats. The arousal of the autonomic nervous system causes you to experience fear and interferes with your ability to comfortably perform in front of an audience.

According to research, some people have higher levels of anxiety in different situations, and some people are more prone to experience anxiety about public speaking. If you are prone to feeling anxious, it might be harder for you to overcome your fear of speaking in public. You may use avoidant behaviors to try to get out of speaking in public. For others, their anxiety may only occur when they are confronted with situations in which they will need to speak in public. However, they may still experience the same physiological symptoms that produce fear.

2. Your thoughts

The beliefs that you have about public speaking and about yourself may also contribute to your fear of speaking in public. Your fear might occur when you overestimate the threats involved such as worrying about your image and your credibility. Having a negative view of your abilities as a speaker can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Some of this may be due to your orientation. People who are performance-oriented tend to view speaking in public as something for which they need special skills. They may view the audience as if the members are judging your performance. If you are communication-oriented, you might instead focus on telling your story, presenting ideas, and communicating your message.

3. Situations

Some people are more anxious when they speak in public in specific situations but not in others. For example, if you do not have a lot of experience, you may be afraid of public speaking. However, remember that as you gain experience, you will also gain confidence.

If your public speech will be evaluated, it could lead to more anxiety. For example, you might feel fine when you are giving a presentation at your job, but you may feel fear when you think about defending your Master’s thesis.

Another example that causes situational fear of public speaking in some people is when they will be presenting to people who have a higher status than them. For example, you might feel fear if you are scheduled to give a presentation to your supervisors or to professionals who are accomplished in your field.

Finally, you may experience situational fear of public speaking in situations in which you will be presenting new ideas for the first time or speaking to new audiences. If you are presenting your own ideas for the first time or are talking to an audience who is different from the other people you normally give presentations to, your anxiety may arise.

4. Skills

If you do not have a lot of skill in public speaking, it may contribute to your fear of speaking in public. Skills can be built through work. You do not always need to be a naturally talented speaker to develop the skills to give good presentations.

Get help from Premier NLP Life Coaching

Many people suffer from a fear of public speaking. Fortunately, it is possible for you to overcome your fear by using neuro-linguistic programming techniques. At Premier Life Coaching, we can equip you with the techniques that you can use to confront your fear. Fill out our online contact form to schedule a consultation.

What Is The Subconscious Mind?

What Is The Subconscious Mind?

Think back to when you first tried to drive a car. It was likely difficult because of the many different complex actions the act of driving requires. It is common for initial attempts to synchronize new sets of complex actions to be difficult. With practice, however, these actions begin to need less conscious thought until everything flows smoothly. These automatic actions are guided by the subconscious mind, which is one of the most powerful forces driving human behavior. At Premier Life Coaching, we can help you to get in touch with your subconscious mind so that you can make positive changes in your life.

What does the subconscious mind hide?

When scientists discuss the brain, they commonly talk about unconscious and conscious actions that occur. This helps to make most people aware that behavior is less rational than we might think. The ability to experience emotions, synchronize actions, and control thoughts depend on how deep the level of information processing is. Sigmund Freud first proposed the idea of these deeper levels when he introduced the model of the three levels of the mind. According to Freud, the mind can be divided into the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, and the unconscious mind.

The conscious mind is what defines the actions and thoughts that are within your awareness. Your subconscious mind is where your automatic actions and reactions that you can become aware of exist. Your unconscious mind defines all of your memories and past events, but it is inaccessible regardless of how hard you might try to remember.

Detecting the subconscious mind with science

In order to better explain how the different levels of the mind interact to influence human behavior, scientists will need to be able to detect the various depths of the mind. Priming paradigms can help to capture the different information processing levels. For example, a recent study demonstrated that irrelevant cues can shape learning. This suggests that the effect of unconscious, subconscious, and conscious thoughts can be demonstrated by varying the time of presentation of emotional faces.

In the study, the participants were shown pictures of faces and were asked to compare the pictures to a prior picture to determine whether they mimicked a similar emotion. The results found that people correctly recognized facial expression differences if the pictures were displayed for 0.047 seconds. If the pictures were only displayed for 0.027 seconds to 0.033 seconds, the correct response rate dropped by 50%. When the pictures were presented for 0.020 seconds, the participants were unable to discriminate between the facial expressions.

This demonstrates a difference between the unconscious and conscious influence of thinking. People were unable to give correct answers unless the pictures were presented for long enough for the details to enter their conscious awareness. While pictures that were presented for 0.027 seconds to 0.033 seconds were not sufficient for verbalization at the conscious level of awareness, they still had a measurable influence on the behavior of the respondents. While the rate dropped by half, the participants still retained the partial ability to give correct answers, which indicated the influence of the subconscious mind.

Activation of brain regions

You may wonder whether the activation of the regions of your brain differs when you experience the influence of the conscious mind versus the subconscious mind. You might also wonder why conscious thoughts are processed more slowly than unconscious thoughts.

In the past, it was not possible to locate the areas of the brain where the thought processes occur or to visualize specific regions of brain activation. However, brain imaging methods have advanced and now allow researchers to study the pathways of thought processing by looking at images in the changes of the brain’s neuroanatomy. Brain imaging research suggests that the depth of thought depends on a thought’s processing pathway. The pathways of unconscious and conscious thoughts can clearly be differentiated.

By contrast, it is much more difficult to define the processing pathway of the subconscious mind. It doesn’t appear those subconscious thoughts follow their own unique pathway. Instead, subconscious thoughts appear to share parts of both of the other pathways of information processing.

Other ways to tap into and harness the power of the subconscious mind

Neuro-linguistic programming is a set of tools and techniques that can allow you to tap into your subconscious mind to effect needed changes in your life. At Premier NLP Life Coaching, we can help you to learn these techniques so that you can reach your goals. Contact us today to schedule a consultation by filling out our online contact form.

How to Stop Food Cravings Instantly

How to Stop Food Cravings Instantly

Intense food cravings are a problem for millions of people who struggle to maintain or to lose weight. If you find that you have uncontrollable urges to eat specific types of foods, you might wonder why you have trouble resisting them even when you are not hungry. Fortunately, there are some techniques that can help you to conquer your cravings that you can learn with the help of Premier Life Coaching. It is possible to control the cravings that you experience in just a few minutes.

Eliminate the physical reasons for your cravings

Your body can send signals to your brain when you need specific nutrients. A craving for chocolate can be a symptom of a deficiency of magnesium. If you need calcium, you might crave carbonated drinks, fatty foods, and alcohol. Eating a balanced diet of healthy, unprocessed foods will help you to get rid of most of the physical causes of your cravings. You can also undergo testing for nutrient deficiencies and take supplements.

If you are on a restrictive diet, it can quickly cause cravings. You should stop dieting if you suffer from compulsive eating. Diets tend to make compulsive eating problems worse.

Sugar-free beverages and foods tend to make people crave sugar. Instead of consuming these types of beverages and foods, you should switch to unprocessed foods.

You should also make certain that you eat enough food. Some compulsive eaters and dieters confuse hunger and cravings. Before you decide that you are having a craving, think about what time you last ate and the amount that you consumed. Hunger typically comes on gradually while cravings occur suddenly.

Ask the right questions to stop your cravings

If there are no physical causes for your cravings, you can stop them by asking yourself the right questions. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

  • Are you truly hungry?
  • If you are, how do you know that it is hunger and not a craving?
  • Could what you feel actually be thirst?
  • Is the food that you crave what you actually want?
  • If the food is not what you really want, what do you really need right now?
  • What would make you feel better right now?

Asking yourself these questions and honestly answering them should help you to make a better choice. Your cravings may have even gone down a little. If you have cravings because you are an emotional eater, take other steps to uplift yourself.

Accept your cravings, dissociate from them, welcome them, and release them

Start by accepting that it is okay to experience cravings. If you resist a craving, it will intensify. If you accept it, it will dissolve. You can use an internal dialogue to talk yourself through the craving by recognizing what it is and telling yourself that you will get through it.

The next step is to dissociate yourself from the craving. Examine the craving with empathy as if it is not your own. A craving is simply a manifestation of patterns that you have developed long ago. View your craving as something that is not yours anymore. This can help you to loosen the grip that your craving has on you.

Welcome and release your craving

At this point, you likely already feel a lot more relieved. Be open to the feeling. You might want to breathe deeply while placing a hand over your heart. While you welcome the craving, you might see an image, feel something in your body, or hear a sentence.

If your feelings become intense, you can restart at the first stage and ask yourself questions about what has come up. This can help you to break through the internal dialogue that may take place during a craving. After you have welcomed the craving, you will gain a sense of release.

Change your focus

Changing your focus can help you to control your cravings. You can focus on sensations, sounds, or images that you enjoy. You might think about how good you will feel once you have overcome your craving. Try to recognize how you will feel when you overcome your craving. Use a positive dialogue to intensify the positive sensations, sounds, or images until the craving is gone.

If all else fails

If everything else fails, think about what giving into your cravings has or might cost you. Imagine yourself standing in front of a mirror and feeling uncomfortable about your body. Pick whichever sensation, image, or thought that represents what your cravings are costing you.

Focus on the images, thoughts, and sensations that your cravings cause inside of you. Then, think about the food that you are craving. You will create a mental movie to help you to stop a craving.

Picture the food in your hand while seeing yourself in the mirror. Welcome the craving and the associated sensations. As you picture yourself bringing the food close to your mouth, hear, feel, and watch the consequences if you repeat it regularly. For example, picture instant weight gain, feeling uncomfortable, and other similar consequences. Make the images, sounds, and feelings as intense as you can stand. It is important that you remember to focus on the craving first instead of the food so that you do not permanently dislike the food after the process.

Get help from Premier NLP Life Coaching

Eliminating food cravings can be difficult for most people to overcome. Using neuro-linguistic programming techniques can help you to control your cravings so that you can overcome them. To learn more, contact Premier Life Coaching today by filling out our online contact form.

How To Control Your Emotions Using NLP

How To Control Your Emotions Using NLP

If you have trouble controlling your emotions, it is possible for you to do so. Learning how to get your emotions under control begins with the understanding that you are a complete and whole being. It is easy to think of your self in terms of different parts of you. However, you are made up of more than just the individual parts of you. Your brain, body, neurology, thoughts, and emotions all work together to create who you are and the reality that you experience. By realizing that you are more than the sum of your parts, you can begin the process of learning how to control your emotions. Premier Life Coaching can provide you with some techniques that you can use to help you through the process.

What is the goal of getting control of your emotions?

One goal for learning how to get your emotions under control is to gain the ability to separate an event from your reaction to it. You can then teach yourself that you have other choices available to you.

Finding your emotional baseline

Every person has a baseline of emotions from which they operate. Your emotional baseline is simply the mood that you experience in general. Having a higher baseline means that you will have a better outlook on your life and will experience fewer impacts when negative things occur.

To figure out what your baseline is, begin by checking how you feel randomly throughout the day. While you do this, pay attention to what is happening in your body and mind. Note the following things when you do this:

  • What are the time and the date?
  • What are the physical feelings in your body?
  • What is happening in your mind?

After you have written down these things about 20 or 30 different times, you should start to see a pattern showing your general mood. Realize that you are the only person who can control your baseline. Ask yourself about what pattern you have found. You should also look at the thoughts and feelings that you experienced frequently and consider whether they reflect the types of emotions and thoughts that you would like to have.

Raising your baseline

If you find that your emotional baseline is lower than you would like, you can take some steps to raise it. One easy way to do this is to follow the 5% rule, which is an NLP technique that can help you. The idea behind the 5% rule is for you to give additional energy to every situation that you encounter. For example, if you are using a treadmill, up your speed by 5%. Try applying the 5% rule to everything that you do for 90 days to see how your mood improves.

Developing more emotional flexibility

Increasing your emotional flexibility can also help you to master your emotions. Allowing yourself to experience a broader range of emotions can be helpful. You can do this by taking a comedy class, watching silly movies, noticing when others do something right, and allowing yourself to feel moved. Doing these types of things can allow you to experience more positive emotions.

Dealing with others

Other people do not have the power to force you to feel one way or another. Even though you might be able to make a logical connection between your emotions and what someone else said to you, you are the person who has control over your emotions. When you treat others as being able to make you feel a certain way, your body will cause you to feel that particular emotion. Even if you feel as if someone is causing you to feel bad, it is just as easy for you to make yourself to feel good instead.

In order to change things, you must take responsibility for your emotions. If you do not do so, you won’t be able to control them. If someone actively tries to make you feel bad, you should do the opposite and relax and enjoy yourself. In many cases, if you stay calm when someone else is in a highly charged state, he or she will eventually also calm down.

Realize that most people are more worried about themselves than about what you feel. If someone says something that you dislike, recognize that what he or she said was likely unintentional. Most people don’t actively try to make others suffer or to feel miserable.

How to deal with challenges

Everyone has to deal with challenges in their lives from time to time. Since you can expect that you will encounter problems, it is a good idea for you to learn how to appropriately handle them. When you are faced with a challenge, bring it down to your sensory level. Describe it to yourself by only using your senses such as your kinesthetic, auditory, and visual senses. This helps a problem to become more concrete so that you can handle it objectively.

After you have outlined the challenge, try to determine if there is a conflict between it and your desired emotional state. If there is, there is something that you can do to fix it. You should also regularly practice trying to consciously remove excess stress and tension from your body. Your body builds up tension in an attempt to adapt to the environment and to your thoughts. When you relax your body, it is easier to keep control over the emotions that you feel.

Realize that a majority of things that happen do not immediately threaten your well-being and health. Many people experience unnecessary stress because they think that it is possible for something bad to happen. You can instead choose to begin planning and working towards having a better situation than what you are in right now.

Dealing with habituated reactions

You might find yourself reacting to a situation before you can even take the time to consciously think about how you respond. These types of responses are formed from habit. When you are dealing with a habituated reaction, you can follow four steps to break the pattern, including the following:

  • Identify the pattern
  • Break it down to its smallest parts
  • Identify the least variable parts
  • Change the least variable parts

In most cases, changing the least variable parts of a pattern will cause the dynamic to shift.

Dealing with negative thoughts

Everyone has had thoughts that put them in bad moods. If you experience this, you might try putting it out of your mind only for it to return with greater force. This can make you feel worse than you initially did when the negative thought first appeared. To handle negative thoughts, you can begin by not resisting them. Understand that your thoughts only exist inside of your mind and are not real.

When you have a negative thought, go along with it. Inserting a conscious purpose into an unconscious process can ruin it. Learn to play with negative thoughts when they come up. For example, if you are flying on a plane, you might have a negative thought that you could die in a plane crash. However, the odds of this happening are extremely low. According to the National Safety Council, your odds of dying in a plane crash as a passenger is one in 205,552.

If you find yourself worrying that you might die on a plane, you can consciously add the thought that you will go to hell and suffer eternal torture after you die. This makes the thought seem more ridiculous. When you begin adding to a negative thought, it becomes more difficult for you to take it seriously.

You can also think the thought over again on purpose. When you do that several times, you will grow tired of it, which will make it go away by itself. When you find that you are imagining all of the worst-case scenarios that could occur, you should begin by expanding the range of possibilities. You can instead try to think about all of the good things that could happen instead of the bad things. Everything depends on how you choose to think and to use your mind.

Dealing with anger

It is difficult for many people to get anger under control. For example, if someone else cuts you off in traffic, you might feel angry. It is important for you to understand that your anger is simply a secondary emotion because it is a reaction to another event. When you are able to identify what is really at the root of the anger that you are experiencing, you can gain more insight into what is happening and what needs to change.

Gaining and keeping control over your emotions can be a lifelong process. You have to work every day to keep control of your emotions. Remember that your emotions are yours alone. As soon as you begin to point fingers at the people around you for your emotional state, you give up your power to do something about it. In summary, do the following things to master your emotions:

  • Check your emotional state several times throughout each day;
  • Follow the 5% rule;
  • Learn how to have greater flexibility in your emotions;
  • When someone tries to make you feel bad, focus on relaxing instead;
  • Follow the four-step process to handle habituated reactions;
  • If you have a negative thought, play with it by adding to it or by actively thinking it through from start to finish; and
  • If you become angry, ask whether anger is the most appropriate reaction.

If you are able to implement these steps, you will be able to learn how to control your emotions and to improve how you feel and the quality of your life.

Get help from Premier NLP Life Coaching

Gaining mastery over your emotions is a very difficult thing to do, but it is possible when you learn the right techniques. However, if you are able to learn how to control your emotions, you can enjoy a better overall mood and a better life quality. At Premier Life Coaching, we can use neuro-linguistic programming techniques to help you to identify the root causes of the negative emotions that you feel and to help you to keep them under control. This can help you to improve your mood and to have a better quality of life. To learn more about neuro-linguistic programming and how it might help you to control your emotions, contact Premier Life Coaching today by filling out our online contact form.

What is Hypnotherapy

What is Hypnotherapy?

Hypnotherapy is one technique that may be used to help you to change your habits through intense focus. It may be used in conjunction with other techniques such as neuro-linguistic programming. At Premier NLP Life Coaching, we use the techniques that we determine to be the most effective methods to help our clients to attain their goals. In some cases, hypnotherapy may be one of the tools that we use.

What is hypnotherapy?

In hypnotherapy, a clinical hypnotherapist guides clients through hypnosis to achieve a state of concentration and focus or a trance. This state is similar to what it is like to be completely absorbed in your own thoughts, in music, in a movie, or in a book. When clients are in this trance-like state, they are able to turn their focus inward so that they can identify and tap into the resources and tools that they have inside of themselves to help them to make needed changes or to regain control over certain aspects of their lives.

When is hypnotherapy used?

There are many different applications for hypnotherapy, which is used together with other forms of treatment or therapy. It can be used to treat the following issues:

  • Phobias
  • Anxiety
  • Substance abuse
  • Tobacco addiction
  • Spontaneous behaviors that are undesirable
  • Sexual dysfunction
  • Bad habits

Hypnotherapy may also help to improve learning disorders, sleep problems, relationship issues, and communication abilities. Hypnotherapy may help people to manage their pain and to help with skin problems, digestive issues, and the side effects of chemotherapy and pregnancy. Dentists may use hypnotherapy to help people to stop grinding their teeth or to control their fear of dental care.

What to expect during hypnotherapy

When you attend a hypnotherapy session, it will likely be performed in an environment that is therapeutic and calm. Your hypnotherapist will help by guiding you into a focused and highly relaxed state. You will be asked to think about situations and experiences in ways that might help you to change the way that you behave and think. Despite the popular misconceptions about hypnosis that you might see depicted in plays, books, or movies, you will not lose control of your self or be asleep or unconscious. While you will hear the suggestions of your hypnotherapist, you will decide whether you will act on them.

How hypnotherapy works

Hypnosis is a procedure or tool that helps to facilitate other types of treatments or techniques. It is not a form of psychotherapy or a treatment itself. A trained provider of clinical hypnosis can decide together with you whether hypnosis will be used together with other approaches. The length of your hypnotherapy sessions may vary and will depend on the particular problem that you are trying to address.

What are the benefits of hypnosis?

When you enter a hypnotic state, you may be able to open up more to suggestions and discussion. Hypnosis can help to improve the degree of success of other treatments that you might receive for the issue that you are having. Hypnosis may be particularly effective to help you to overcome bad habits such as overeating or smoking. It can also help some people who need help with crisis management, pain relief, and those who have severe symptoms.

Hypnosis can improve the success of other treatments for many conditions, including:

  • Phobias, fears, and anxiety
  • Sleep disorders
  • Depression
  • Stress
  • Post-trauma anxiety
  • Grief and loss

What to look for in a hypnotherapist

When you are searching for a hypnotherapist, look for someone who is certified in hypnosis. You should also find a hypnotherapist with whom you feel comfortable working with. A good hypnotherapist should be someone who you feel like you can trust and be open with in your communication. If you do not click with someone or feel like you cannot trust him or her, hypnosis will be less likely to help you.

Contact Premier NLP Life Coaching

At Premier Life Coaching, hypnotherapy is one technique that we use to help our clients to achieve their goals. We also use neuro-linguistic programming techniques to help you to change your underlying scripts in a more positive way. To learn more about the help we can offer, fill out our online contact form to request a consultation.

Misconceptions About NLP and Hypnosis

Misconceptions About NLP and Hypnosis

In one form or another, hypnosis has been used for thousands of years. Shamans used trances to instruct and heal people. Ancient Egyptians and Greeks also used something similar to a hypnotic trance with their dream temples of healing.

The understanding of hypnosis has greatly increased in the past few hundred years. Despite the increased knowledge, some people still have some misconceptions about the practice, even though hypnosis has helped thousands with weight-loss and hypnosis is very effective for quitting smoking. Here is what Premier Life Coaching thinks that you should know about some common myths that people have about hypnosis and hypnotherapy.

Hypnosis techniques are all the same

Some people believe that hypnosis is always the same. However, there are many different techniques that are used within the umbrella of hypnosis. The two primary approaches to hypnosis are called authoritarian techniques and permissive techniques.

Authoritarian techniques are instructive and direct, and they do not work for everyone.
Permissive techniques are subtle. The hypnotherapist works together with his or her client to utilize the client’s ability to see their issue to find a way forward. This type of hypnosis tries to identify strategies for how to change your script.

Subliminal messaging works while you are sleeping

Subliminal messages are information of which you are unaware. If you become aware of a message, it is not subliminal. If subliminal messaging worked while you were sleeping, and you fell asleep while watching a television program, you should know what happened in the show when you woke up.

When you are in a hypnotic trance, you are not sleeping. You might think that you were, but you were not. During a trance, you are in a state of awareness that is focused. it is similar to a state when you lose yourself in an event. A trance allows you to hear ideas and messages without being consciously aware of them. These messages then can help you to achieve behavioral change.

Some people cannot be hypnotized

Everyone has the ability to go into a trance. Every time that you find yourself concentrating away distractions, you are using a trance. An experienced hypnotherapist who takes time to learn about you can use his or her range of skills to help you while you are in a hypnotic state.

Hypnosis does require your cooperation. If you do not want to be hypnotized, you can tell yourself that you are unable to be hypnotized. It will not happen when you tell yourself these types of messages. However, there is little point in seeing a hypnotherapist if you are determined for the process not to work.

A hypnotherapist makes you go into a trance

A hypnotherapist does not force you into a trance. Instead, he or she helps you through a process of self-hypnosis. A hypnotherapist helps you to go into a trance state, but he or she will not make you do anything strange. Hypnosis is not a form of mind control that the hypnotherapist has over you.

You lose control when you are in a hypnotic trance

Some people are afraid of hypnotherapy because they worry that they will lose control.
They might worry that they will tell their innermost secrets when they are in a trance. Some people also fear hypnosis because they dislike having someone else making decisions for them.

People who prefer to be in control are often good subjects for hypnosis because they have detailed information that allows the hypnotherapist to gain greater insight into their situations. This can help a hypnotherapist to identify the most effective ways to help.

Contact Premier NLP Life Coaching

Hypnotherapy and neuro-linguistic programming are effective strategies that can help you to find effective solutions to the problems and issues that you are facing. These techniques can help you to identify and change your unconscious mind so that you can achieve the changes that you would like to experience in your life. At Premier Life Coaching, we use a variety of techniques to help our clients to live happier and more fulfilling lives. To learn how NLP and hypnotherapeutic techniques might be able to help you, contact Premier NLP Life Coaching today by filling out our online contact form.