I would like to share with you my encounter with a man who attended a 6 week HeadGym ‘Confidence Building & Goals Workshop’. The first day is always interesting; how many people will turn up to a confidence building course? Will anybody speak? If you have no confidence how do you get there in the first place? For the sake of this blog, I will call this particular man ‘Tom’.
Tom was a little overweight very shaky, sweaty and reluctant to speak. He was red in the face and generally giving off signs of being nervous and under confident. In the first session of a workshop, I do most of the talking and things begin to warm up a little. However, Tom was still quiet and I was not really sure if he was following what I was talking about.
The weeks passed and around about week 3 we start the ‘Goals Formula’; this also means I get a little more background. Tom is around 40, single, unemployed, overweight, on antidepressants and sleeping tablets. He told me he was bullied at school, bullied at work, lost his job and had a complete breakdown about 18 months previously.
We start on the goals and Tom wrote down ten, the main ones being:
- get a job
- lose weight
- stop medication
- Speak in front of people
We went through the formula together and off he went with a set of actions. On the final day of the course, Tom arrived in his usual quiet manner but at the end of the session he gave a presentation to the group. Tom felt he had let his sister down as he had been unable to do his speech at her wedding a few months ago. His presentation to the group (goal number four) showed great progress and was a real achievement as public speaking had been a real issue in the past. A few weeks past and we had a follow up meeting; Tom now had a part time job (goal number one). He was attending a weight loss group, had started to exercise and was losing weight (goal number two). He had also cut his medication by half (on his way to goal number three). Fantastic progress! So what now? I asked. “I want to go to college and get a full time job” he replied. We applied the goals formula again and off he went. I saw him again a few weeks later; he had been given a promotion, the company had agreed to fund a college course for him, he was medication free and had lost more weight.
Best of all for him he had spoken in front of a group at work and felt comfortable doing so. Amazing! So what now? I asked again. “I want to learn to drive!” A real leap by his own admission. I promised to search out a theory test book, so he could start to learn. I completely forgot about the book and when I remembered about 2 weeks later I gave him a call “I am so sorry, I forgot the book but I have it now” before I could finish he said “Guess what? I have my licence! I took a crash course and passed” I was blown away and congratulated him. “What are you going to do next?” I asked.
Anything is possible” he said. For me, Tom is a great example of somebody who turned things around and achieved his own personal goals. He had some real challenges to overcome and he had to push himself hard. I am confident he will continue to achieve and deal with any challenges that come his way.