Reduce anxiety and become clear about your future with the WONDER model

How do we know what we want in life, and how do we shut out negative distractions to gain clarity? Suhail Mirza is a renowned Life Coach, Senior Advisor and author who joined Cecilia Holmblad from Winningtemp on a recent Lunch & Learn. He shared his research-based view on how we can reduce negative feelings and gain clarity in an ever changing world. 

I believe that the quality of our lives largely is the quality of the feelings and emotions we experience on a daily basis. We all have values, we all have beliefs. Unfortunately, we don’t spend much time evaluating our values or beliefs. But we do feel emotions every day. What we want is to experience more of the feelings that empower us and less of the feelings that disempower us.

 Suhail Mirza

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What do we want?

For over a decade, Suhail has been working as an advisor, inner wellness coach and speaker globally , guiding a lot of leaders and others in the search for inner wellbeing. Based on their stories, he have seen that most people want one or more of the following:

• Feel certain that they know where they’re going
• A sense of meaning
• Connection to others
• Self love
• Peace of mind

The first step to gain more of these positive outcomes, is to gain clarity.

“You need to know exactly where you are with searing self honesty and confront the real situation in the real you. Only then can you move forward.”

You can’t gain clarity from a position of fear or anxiety. Unfortunately, anxiety has become more common these past few years, but there are tools to reduce negative feelings and gain clarity. 

Suhail has created a model which he calls the WISDOM model which comprises 6 elements; and these are based on his work globally and his book Many Mansions.

The first element within the WISDOM model is entitled WONDER. You can use this 6 step module to reduce anxiety, gain clarity and increase your inner wellness 

Follow the 6 steps of the WONDER module to gain clarity and set yourself up for inner success.

The WONDER model

1. Where are you?‍

You need to be absolutely honest about where you are right now and how you feel about your current situation. Without being honest about your current emotions, your current circumstances, you will not know how to progress. ‍

2. Organisation

You need to look at what resources you have. And most importantly look at the positives in your life. Whether you are facing a rough economic situation or trouble in a relationship, there are always positive things in your life. Also acknowledge the resources you have that can help you move forward.

 Once you have taken your personal inventory, you’ll know what you have, and you will also know what you lack. This information will help you when you make a plan going forward.

3. Negation

The three most common negative feelings that ruin our wellbeing are anxiety, worry and fear. These emotions drain us and make us less abundant. 

There are many exercises you can use to negate these feelings, but here two simple practices that Suhail teaches in his programs:

Gratitude. The more gratitude you express, the more abundant you’ll become. You can express gratitude in writing, and all it takes is 3 minutes a day. First, express gratitude for the big stuff. Your family, your health or your work. But also make sure to think about the smaller things like writing down the best things that happened during the past 24 hours.

Visualisation. Visualise how you want your life to look in one year and in five years. Go deep into areas like relationships, business, health etc. The idea is to step outside of today and paint a picture for your mind. 

4. Decision‍

You need to make a decision about three things. What is your self-value, your self-worth and your self-love?

These are really tough questions to answer, and they are not always positive. But there are ways to enhance your thoughts about yourself and paint a more positive picture. Here are two simple exercises you can do:

Forgiveness. You need to forgive the former you for mistakes you’ve made, decisions you’ve made and times you’ve let yourself down. Otherwise, you are carrying  around a heavy bag of regrets on your back. You need to lighten, and empty your bag. Visualise all the times you’ve let yourself down, forgive your old self and move on. It can take a lot of time, but eventually, your bag will be lightened and you’ll feel much better about yourself.‍

Contemplation. This is a form of meditation. The way Suhail does it is to sit quietly for 3 minutes and just observe. Observe your thoughts and your breath and stay in the present. You’ll notice two things. First, your inner voice is 90% negative. Second, you’ll realise that you are not your voice. Your voice is just an amalgamation of all your past experiences. 

5. Execution

It is time to execute. Now you have several exercises which will help you reduce your negative emotions and gain clarity, and all that is left is to execute on them.‍

6. Ritual

The best way to guarantee your execution is to turn these exercises into a ritual. Suhail takes 45 minutes every morning to do them, but all you need is 15 minutes and it doesn’t need to be in the morning. Remember, 15 minutes every day might change your life.

1. Contemplate via meditation or other practice
2. Practice gratitude for the big things
3. Visualise your future
4. Practice gratitude for the small things that happened today
5. Connect with your emotions

This last point of connecting with your emotions is important. Do something that helps you transcend and connect with your heart. Read something spiritual-related that opens up your heart, listen to a sad song or watch a clip that helps you connect to your emotions. Over time, you’ll become better at replacing your negative thoughts with positive feelings.

These are the 6 steps to gain clarity in an ever changing world. If you want to learn more about Suhail Mirza and his model for gaining inner wellness, you can read about it here.

If you want to listen to the entire Lunch & Learn with Suhail Mirza, you can click here.