Ever feel there's a glass ceiling looming overhead? According to a new simple 31-step life coaching guide, you can be on your way to smashing it in just one month.
The advice, which is aimed at women, promises to improve confidence and assertiveness, increase happiness, improve relationships with friends or colleagues.
The steps, which use visualisation techniques and psychotherapeutic strategies, also help release stress and anxiety.
Life coaches Bec Howard and Dannie-Lu Carr of coaching company The Good Witches of the North, who created the guide, say the strategies can help women shed their self-limiting beliefs and gain the confidence to succeed in both their private and professional lives.
'The aim is to help women get what they really want out of life,' Bec said.
Here, The Good Witches explain their strategies. Try a new step everyday, in no particular order, and who knows where you will be a month from now.
Step 1: Feel empowered
'Swap the 'sorry' word for silence for a week and notice the difference,' says Bec. 'We fill the air and our emails with meaningless power sucking 'sorrys' on a daily basis.'
The Good Witches say silencing them and removing them from conversation both online and face to face will leave you feeling empowered and liberated.
'Start with an old email or text first and delete each apology you find,' adds Bec.
Step 2: Lower anxiety
'When your anxiety starts to get the better of you exhale long and strong and then take a tiny sip of air in,' recommends Dannie-Lu, who says to repeat the exercise three times.
Keep your eyes gentle and ahead of you and then take three steps forward.
'Leave your anxiety three steps back and in the past,' she says.
Step 3: Shift your mood
'When you feel down and stuck in your problem and don't know what to do, you will notice that you are not only down in the dumps but you are physically looking down with your eyes too, which keeps you stuck in your feelings,' Dannie-Lu explains.
Change your perspective - get up and look up and to the right.
'This will move you out of your feelings to a place where your mind can access new solutions to make you feel better,' she says.
Step 4: Get what you want
'Most people feed their minds with negatives all day long about what they don't want. For your mind to make sense of these requests it has to concentrate on what you don't want to happen, so you are effectively training your mind to focus on what you don't want,' says Bec.
But The Good Witches say getting what you want is easier than you think. 'Say it the way you want it, in the positive,' says Bec. 'Be specific and your mind will be fed with everything you do want and will get busy helping you find the things that will make it all happen for you.'
Step 5: Get out on the right side of bed
'We all talk about whether we got out the wrong side of the bed, but this trick is helps get your mind out of the right side of the bed every day,' advises Bec.
Before you get up, take five minutes to run through your day in your mind just as you would like it to happen.
'See in your mind everything coming to life, see what you want to see, hear what people will say during the day and imagine how you will feel.,' she says. 'Then let your day unfold, now you have set your intention.'
Step 6: Increase your strength
When you need some inner strength The Good Witches recommend painting yourself into a super hero in your mind.
'Think about your very own superhero pose - once you have it in clear your mind's eye, then you need to step into that pose and hold it for five seconds. It might feel silly at first, but repeat three times and you will feel stronger,' says Dannie-Lu.
Research has found that body stance can have a powerful affect on our mood.
Step 7: Feel grateful
'We often forget to be grateful. We forget what we have and we concentrate on what we don't have which makes us smaller, shrinks what we think we can do, makes us resentful and stops us being happy,' says Dannie-Lu.The solution? Do the walk of power every day when you get out of bed.'With very step you take to the shower, bathroom or to make a cup of tea say thank you for the things in your life that are good, even if they are small,' she says.'You will have said thank you multiple times which leaves you feeling positive and ready for what the day has to offer.'
Step 8: Realise your dreams
'We all want great things to happen and we all have dreams, but this is where we are going wrong - they stay dream-like,' explains Bec.
'Making them more concrete will help you move to realising your dream quicker than you could imagine.'
Place a piece of paper horizontally in front of you and on the left hand side of the paper draw a picture of where you are now with some coloured pens and what it is you don't like about it.
Then, on the right hand side of the paper, draw where you want to be in a year.
'Let your imagination and your dreams come to life, add colour and words so it is as vibrant and exciting as you can make it,' says Dannie-Lu.
'Now step back and write down the three bold steps that you could make right now to make this future happen. '
The Good Witches recommend revisiting your picture frequently and repeating the three bold steps.
Step 9: Be authentic
If you feel like a fake or disconnected within yourself, speak your top three strengths out loud, beginning with 'I am…' and say each one three times.
Bec says: 'As you do it, envisage yourself as a child owning these strengths and see yourself stepping confidently back into them. Your authenticity will pour out.'
Step 10: Make yourself heard
'At different times in our lives, we all think that our opinion doesn't count or people won't think what we've got to say will be good enough,' says Dannie-Lu.
'Our fear keeps us from saying what we want at work in meetings and to colleagues, and sometimes the time has passed for us to ask that question as someone else has asked it.'
Every time you think you want to ask something or you have an idea and are unsure as to whether you should, write the question down in front of you, then look at it and ask yourself would this be a good question if someone else asked it. If it is a yes then ask ahead.
'Nine times out of 10 you will ask your question,' she says.
Step 11: Find freedom
'We go through life with a long list of things we ought to, should do, need to, must do or have to do. It is exhausting, but have you ever asked yourself where this list came from?,' asks Bec.
'When did you decide to adhere to all these rules? Most of them will not be yours but rules handed down to you as you have passed through life.'
Take a pen and capture your list of 'oughts' and 'shoulds'. Check it twice and see what rules you want to keep, what rules aren't useful and which are cluttering up your life.
Take the ones you don't want anymore and then bin, burn or throw them away.
Step 12: Let go of the past
'Many of us have memories of times when we feel things didn't go the way that we wanted them to, or we feel bad or uncomfortable about them looking back,' says Dannie-Lu.
Find a memory that niggles you, makes you feel unhappy and that you would like to feel different about. Go back into that memory and notice the details about what you remember. Ask yourself: Is your memory colour or black or white? Are there sounds? Is the memory large or small? Does it appear near or far away from you? Are there any smells? Are you are seeing it through your own eyes or are you looking at it as though it's a photograph? Note what you find down.
Then go back into the memory and change everything to its opposite. 'If the memory was colour change it so it's black and white. Once you have made everything opposite to what it was, go back into the memory and notice how you feel different about it now,' says Dannie-Lu.
Step 13: Improve relationships
'Sometimes we wish that we could just get on with someone better, be it a boss or a friend, but we just don't know how to make it better,' says Bec.
The Good Witches have an unusual strategy: Get three pairs of shoes and place them in three different positions in a room. Stand in the first pair of shoes, your shoes, and talk out loud about the problem you are having with the person and say what's irritating you about them. 'Really go for it,' says Dannie-Lu.
Next go and stand in the second pair of shoes and pretend to be the person you are having a problem with and talk as though you are them and say out loud what they are irritated with you about.
Then step into the third pair of shoes and look back at the two other pairs of shoes you have just stood in and ask yourself what's going on between these two people. Finally step back into your shoes.
'Notice what has changed about how you feel about the person you had a problem with,' she says.
Step 14: Feel happy
'When you need a little smiley lift in your day, remember the funniest thing that ever happened to you or that you ever saw,' says Bec.
Replay each moment and fully enjoy the experience.
'Let yourself giggle and guffaw. Carry that lifted spirit with you all day long,' she says.
Step 15: Inject energy
Create your own personal energy blast without the need for vitamins.
'Firstly, decide what emotional ingredients you would like in your energy blast, for example you could have power, excitement, happiness, strength - anything you like!,' says Bec.
'Decide your four or five ingredients and then imagine there is a circle on the floor.
'Think of your first emotional ingredient and then imagine a time when you experienced that emotion - see what you saw, feel what you felt, hear what you heard and when you feel the intensity of the emotional ingredient rise to its peak step into the circle.
'Repeat this for each of your emotional ingredients and when you have done them all you can step into your energy blast circle as it is complete. Try placing your circle at your front door so you can step into your energy blast every time you go out and come home.'
When you need to ensure what you say is not misunderstood make sure you use one sentence with less than ten words, and then stop.
Step 16: Create clarity
'Don't justify yourself. Don't explain. Less is more. Be tough on yourself with your content,' says Dannie-Lu.
'This one is a bit like a new season wardrobe clear-out - if you're not sure you need it, lose it! Vocal clarity will occur as a result and your communications will fly, meaning you become more effective.'
Step 17: Wage war against worry
'We all have worries day to day about things that we're not looking forward to, be it a presentation, an interview, a first day at work or a first date,' says Bec.
By imagining you can time travel The Good Witches say you can wage war against worry.
'Imagine that it's just after you completed the event that you were worried about and it went really well. Imagine how you feel knowing you completed it successfully, what you saw and what you heard people say to you afterwards,' she says.
Spend several minutes really imagining how it was when you'd completed it successfully, then come back to the present and notice how you feel differently about your event.
Step 18: Boost confidence
When you need a bit of a boost, remember yourself as you were when you were five years old.
'Now imagine that five-year old acting as though they were king/queen of the playground,' adds Dannie-Lu.
'Nobody held you back then did they? That's the thing you envisage and then that's the energy you tap back in to.' Go forth your majesty!
Step 19: Regain sanity
'Everybody wants to feel better, but sometimes we just seem to be having those days that seem to be getting worse by the minute and our negative feelings can spiral out of control and make us feel even worse,' says Dannie-Lu.
'Sanity and feeling better are easier than you think, for what you need to understand is that a feeling is just a thought travelling through your body.
'If you notice your feeling and you don't like it, you can simply change the thought and feel better, it's that simple. Try it for a day and notice how easy it is to do.'
Step 20: Solve your problem
'Find me a person who doesn't have a problem, or several problems,' says Bec. 'What they all have in common is that as soon as they decide that they have a problem they get themselves stuck and don't know where to look, when all they need is themselves and a bit of distance.
So here's how The Good Witches recommend dealing with it: Pretend you're a journalist, and write an article about the problem you're having, as though you were writing about someone else having this problem.
'Read back the article to yourself out loud and notice as you read the three ideas you now have to solve your problem,' she says.
Step 21: Find power in numbers
Sometimes we all want a bit of help, somebody behind us to tell us what to do, to point us in the right direction when we're unsure.
Imagine if you could create a personal board or a team of advisors just for you, who would be on your side no matter what. Who would you choose, if it could be anyone living or dead?
Select those people that you think would help you best,.
'Find out as much as you can about them - read, Google, research and get a sense of their character and their strengths,' says Dannie-Lu.
'The next time you find yourself not knowing what to do, take time out and imagine that you are sat with your team and ask them individually what they would do in this situation.
'Each of their ideas will combine with yours to create a solution that fits.'
Step 22: Make a difference
Feeling low and lacking energy? 'Then you need to shake it up and have a day of difference,' says Bec.
'Difference can energise as it takes us out of our comfort zone, which is what is zapping your energy, but once out of the zone that's where the magic happens and we see new possibilities and energy restores.'
The Good Witches recommend aiming for six differences, and record and reflect on how you feel after doing each.
'Be bold, be courageous, dare yourself - sit on the front row, tell your boss your great idea, change your hair colour, buy new glasses, buy a daring new fragrance, wear something that makes you stand out, talk to a stranger, compliment someone you wouldn't normally,' she says.
'Basically, stop waiting and just go for it!'
Step 23: Be assertive
Whenever you feel like you aren't saying what you mean or people are taking advantage, stop and take yourself out of the situation mentally.
'Go for a walk, find a loo cubicle or something else if you need to, and picture yourself doing the assertive thing you want,' says Bec.
'Once you are back in the conversation, visualise again, and then before you can count to two, do it!'
Step 24: Find your voice
When your voice isn't having the impact you'd like it to and you feel like you aren't being listened to, lift your chin and say the word 'right' as if you are trying to reach the other end of the room.
'See yourself as someone really important, say what you need to say and know that whatever you say will be valid,' advises Dannie-Lu.
Step 25: Feel successful
When you really need things to work and go well, envisage the scenario, paying attention to every last detail,' says Dannie-Lu.
'Then tell yourself that you can follow that through.
'Know in detail how you can and also remind yourself that you have everything within you to be flexible to the situation as it emerges.
'Tell yourself three times out loud, take a deep breath and then walk forward like you mean business.'
Step 26: Up your charisma
To unleash your charisma the Good Witches advise paying attention to everything around you - and then adopting that strategy in conversation too.
'Let yourself be affected in every single moment by everything you notice. Don't judge, don't make meaning, just allow yourself to respond a bit like branches in the wind,' explains Bec.
'When you are talking to other people, do exactly the same thing.'
Step 27: Boost mental energy
'When you feel zapped and you need more 'zing' take a moment to stand tall, close your eyes and imagine that you have a beam of energy coming from underneath your feet,' says Bec.
'Imagine it right through your legs and spine and out through the top of your head, then wave your arms high in the air above your head madly. When you feel yourself fully charged you are ready to get to it.'
Step 28: Find courage
'If you need to feel a little braver ask yourself, if you were an animal, which one would you be? What colour would you be? What would you do if you needed to protect your land and your family?,' says Dannie-Lu.
'Now dare to embody the characteristics of that animal in your own unique human self and your courage will simply arrive.'
Step 29: Release stress
When stress levels hit dizzying heights, The Good Witches advise finding somewhere to sit in peace for a few minutes.
Close your eyes and apply pressure with your index fingers to your temples for five seconds, release for five, apply for five, then repeat several times.
Breathe slowly and easily into your stomach. Roll your shoulders back and down then envisage a sunny day and gently open your eyes.
Step 30: Get centred
When you feel off-balance, stand with your feet parallel and shoulder width apart.
Bend your knees and let your full body weight drop into your pelvic area and distribute evenly down your legs and through the soles of your feet.
Close your eyes and very gently move the weight from one foot to the other. Repeat several times before settling back into a fluid central place.
'Retain the energy centre in your pelvic area as you continue with your day from a centred place,' Bec adds.
Step 31: Encourage creativity
When you need a creative boost in your ideas take a walk out into the fresh air, advise The Good Witches, even if it is freezing or raining, or both.
'Look up and out at a 45 degree angle,' says Bec. 'Ask yourself these three questions. What if you could do anything you wanted with this without consequence? What if money and other resources were unlimited? What would the six-year-old you suggest?'
Creativity, says Bec, will start to flow.