by Lisa Cybaniak
Overcoming your limitations often starts with your beliefs about your abilities, life and your place in it and what you deserve.
Today we’ll be talking about overcoming a variety of stumbling blocks, including things out of our control like the words and actions of others.
There are wonderful people in the world, but sometimes some people can affect us negatively, whether they know it or not. What we do with their actions and words is up to us. Will we let them stop us, or will we push through?
Teresa Bulford-Cooper is the founder & director of TBC training and coaching. She’s a Qualified Coach, NLP Trainer Trainer (she trains the trainers!), author of “Ladies, Let’s Get Going!”, PGCE teacher, former Harley Street Clinical Hypnotherapist, and Business Mentor.
Phew, that’s a lot of skills!
Teresa uses all these qualifications to specialise in helping women start up their own businesses, right from their initial spark, and beyond.
And she’s good at what she does! Her courses have won Best Training Courses in the South of England by SME Enterprises in both 2018 and 2019. Teresa was a semi-finalist for the Venus Awards Most Influential Woman in 2019, and a finalist for The International Coaching Awards in both 2018 & 2019.
Meet Teresa Bulford-Cooper
With all these credentials, it’s easy to think that life has been easy for Teresa. But she knows exactly what it’s like to face obstacles, all of which had the potential to stop her in her tracks. What sets her apart from many are the decisions she consistently made to push through, sticking to her guns, so to speak.
Teresa has faced cruelty from her teaches, unaware of her dyslexia, literally telling her she wouldn’t amount to anything so go sit at the back of the classroom. Despite this, she believed in herself enough to go back to school to get the credentials she knew she deserved and build this tremendous business helping others. Now, dyslexia and all, she’s written her first book.
She faces chronic fatigue syndrome, otherwise known as ME, every single day. She’s raised two kids and kept her marriage of over 40 years on track, all while investing in business ventures – I mean if that doesn’t make you exhausted just thinking of all that work, I don’t know what would!
Let’s face it, we all face limitations every single day. It’s the decisions we make in the face of these limitations that makes or breaks us. Because of her dyslexia, Teresa never thought she’d be a successful entrepreneur or author. But that’s exactly what she is.
Are you curious about what decisions Teresa made to get her to this point in her life – a successful businesswoman, speaker and author? Me too!
So let’s dive right in!
Take a step back
If you are struggling with where you are compared to where you want to be, Teresa’s first tip is to step back. Remove yourself from the situation. If it helps, think of this step as looking at your situation from an outsider’s perspective – like a fly on the wall. Ignore the emotion behind it, and just look at the facts: Where are you and where do you want to be?
Make a list
If you’re a list maker, like both Teresa and I, then you’ll love this step! If not, I recommend making a voice recording, hashing it out with someone who will be a great listener, or journal your thoughts. I know others who suffer with dyslexia love using their voice notes on their phone for this.
This list is meant to help you get clear on exactly what it is you want. Don’t leave anything out. The more detail you can provide yourself, the easier the next step will be.
Set goals
Now that you have your list of all the things you want, it’s time to identify your short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals.
Literally, this step is about determining what you can do; how can you be an active participant in your life and drive yourself forward?
Now, don’t get caught up here in the overwhelm that can drown you. There are likely so many things that you could do to push yourself closer to turning your dream into reality. But getting overwhelmed is going to stop you in your tracks. That’s why Teresa is suggesting short, medium and long-term goals here.
I suggest you start with your long-term goals – where it is you want to be; what you ultimately want. From there, you can begin to figure out the steps you’ll need to take to get there. For me, the medium-term goals are marking points. Reaching these goals will reinforce your ability to accomplish the long-term goal.
Take it one step at a time
On this note, Teresa recommends you chip away at these goals little by little. Think of it as a tractor, she suggests. A tractor isn’t just a tractor. It’s the wheels, gears, nuts & bolts, panels, and all the other parts that come together to create the tractor.
My suggestion is to look at your short-term goals first, as they are short-term – the things you want and need to accomplish first. Ask yourself to commit to 3 things you will do in the next 24-48 hours to move one step closer to reaching one goal.
In essence, you are breaking down the goal into it’s component parts. Having your short-term goals written out is wonderful, but that doesn’t make them come true. You still have work to do to make it happen.
However, you don’t have to do it all today, and you don’t have to work on all your goals at once. Take your time.
Honour yourself
The final step is to honour yourself. It begins with taking your time, including resting when you need to rest, and celebrating all your wins. It doesn’t matter how small those wins are. All that matters is that you’ve followed through and had success. Celebrating that will allow you to recognise the progress you’re making, which builds your confidence and will propel you forward to continue.
More from this episode
Teresa and I dive deep into some of her obstacles over the years, specifically dyslexia, and what it took to decide to continue with her dreams despite the impostor syndrome that threatened to engulf her. She gives her top tips on overcoming dyslexia, a potential dream crusher.
Whether it’s someone telling you that you aren’t good enough, your experiences making you feel like you’re not good enough, or a poor health diagnosis standing in your way, you have the power to make the decision that you can have this, you will have this, and you do deserve this, whatever ‘this’ may be.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Teresa’s A-Level Chemistry teacher, when she was literally pulling her hair out in class because her dyslexia was causing her to not understand the information in front of her. She was about to let those feelings of not being good enough engulf her: “It’s not always the bright, clever ones that make it you know, it’s the ones that have stick ability and don’t give up that make it.”
Press play on the episode above – you don’t want to miss this!
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Voice over credit: Shari Vandermolen. Shari is offering a free download of one of her songs to the fans of the Life Like You Mean It podcast! Just visit www.GiftFromShari.com and tell her where to send it. Shari’s debut album is available for streaming on all the major platforms including Spotify and iTunes.
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