BENEFITING FROM THE CREDIT CRUNCH

We are constantly being fed a diet of gloom and doom by the media at the moment. Turn on the Robert Peston show (I think it used to be called the BBC news) and it's story after story of "the worst day ever for stocks/shares/banks/investors.." fill in the blank for yourself.

For sure there is a lot of change,my nearest and dearest are not exempt from it either, but is it all bad? How you feel about a change is determined by what you tell yourself it means for you. The way you look at something determines your response to it. In NLP we call this reframing - it's about finding an alternative way to view something, a way that enables you to respond more positively.

Losing your job can be devastating. It can bring with it loss of self-esteem, uncertainty about the immediate future and a worry about how you are going to cope. Alternatively - it could be a new beginning. Maybe, if you're really honest, you didn't much like that job anyway. Perhaps you were in a comfortable rut - not really happy but not yet unhappy enough to do something about it. Sound familiar? Maybe being forced to re-evaluate what you really want from a job and look for something else could be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Perhaps a spell with less money coming in sounds frightening at first - but what if you see it as an opportunity to look at what you are spending and to see how you can simplify your life? Sometimes trimming our excesses does us good in lots of other ways. Drinking less alcohol, eating out less and walking instead of using the car are good for our health as well as our pockets. Really thinking about your food shopping means less waste - that's good for the planet too.

Sometimes we all need a nudge to make changes that will be good for us in the long run. I believe that things happen for a reason, even if we don't understand the reason right now. Accepting what has happened, looking for the positives in it and moving forward take up so much less energy than stressing about it anyway. Worry is an exhausting an unproductive emotion. Far better to use what has happened to your advantage. Remember that you are so much more resourceful than you give yourself credit for. Don't just think about surviving the credit crunch - think about how you can use it as a wake up call to change your life for the better!