Look at your ‘buts’!

It’s been a strange start to 2010, don’t you think?  New Year’s Day was a beautiful sunny day, inspiring new thoughts, perfect for setting goals and making New Years resolutions.  Then it snowed and then it snowed some more.  Did you fall into the ‘oh well no need to start my resolutions till the snow’s gone club’?  If you did you’re not alone.  I spoke to someone last week who had put on 7lbs ‘because of the snow’.   It’s time to forgive yourself, get started and move on.

What does 2010 hold for you? More importantly, what do you want it to hold for you?  This year as you write down your goals, ask youself what’s stopped you from achieving this goal before?   An easy way to check is to reread your goals or resolutions, read them out load.  I wonder if when you reread your goal you hear yourself adding an imaginary ’but’ to the end of the sentence.  If you do, that could be because you’re limiting youself.   We stop ourselves from doing what we want to do with all kinds of reasons.  “I’m too tall”, “I’m too old”, “I’m too busy”,  the list goes on.  So revisit your goals and have a look at your “buts”.  Ask yourself if these “buts” are true or just false reasons.   Once you understand yourself more you’ll get better results.  Let me know how it goes.

Dear me….what would I say to me at age 16

What would you tell your 16 year old self.  What important snippets of experience would have help if the you of now could send a message to the you of then?  What would you change?  What would you do instead?  Or would you even have listened?

For my recent birthday, I was given a copy of a wonderful new book called ‘Dear Me – A letter to my sixteen-year-old self’ it’s edited by Joseph Galliano, with a forward written by Sir Elton John.  It’s a compilation of letters written by famous people, such as Paul O’Grady, Emma Thompson, Jonathan Ross, Yoko Ono, Will Young, Stephen Fry and many more.  Each letter, all with a different approach,  contain wonderful advice that we probably all wish we could take nowThis book has made me smile, made me laugh, made me cry and best of all made me think.

So what would I tell my 16 year old self.  I’d tell myself to enjoy time with my parents, they aren’t around for ever.  I’d tell myself never to go on a diet, they are a bad habit to rely on. (An Aunt told me this when I was 13 and I was miffed she even mentioned it!).  I’d tell myself to be more positive and more confident in the choices I made.  And to have fun and be happy!

What would you write in a letter to your sixteen-year-old self?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

PS This book makes a perfect Christmas present.  You can buy a copy from my website.

Friday the 13th

Lucky the Cat

It’s Friday the 13th.  To some it’s just another day, or others might have you believe it’s a special day.  Some will claim it to be unlucky, some might claim it to be the luckiest day of the year.  I believe that whatever you decide, is what you get.

Try this, next time you’re in a car, notice how many blue cars you see.  You’ll see loads, I promise.  Why is that you may ask?  It’s because you’re focused on blue cars and that’s what you see.  The same applies for white, red, green or indeed any car you think of.

Have you ever noticed that once you start collecting lucky or unlucky thoughts or occurances you can relate these experiences to the level of luck you’ve already decided you’re going to have.   Is that true?  ‘Do I really make my own luck?’  Personally, I believe we do and if you choose to get out of bed in the morning and decide you’re going to have an unlucky day than more times than not you’ll get it.  Conversely if you choose to start the day believing it’s going to be your luckiest day ever – then that’s what you get too.

Our bodies and minds are designed to get what we focus on.  Why not give it and try and let me know how it goes.

Make this your lucky day!  Lucky the cat says so!

Enjoy the present

notice the colours of autumn

That’s present as in’ now’, not present as in ‘Christmas’ of course.  After spending a couple of hours shopping in Kingston the other day, it seems what’s on every shop’s mind is where you’re going to spend your hard-earned cash on Christmas presents.  Does is seem to you that Christmas gets earlier and earlier every year?  What about enjoying these lovely warm autumn days, noticing the wonderful range of shades the trees are displaying, or the blue skies, the clouds, the list goes on.  Instead we are being forced to focus on an event in two months time.  This brings me perfectly to a book that I’ve just finished reading, it’s called ‘Present Moment Awareness’ by Shannon Duncan.  You can buy a copy from my website.  It’s a modest book with a big message, very simply written and I love its simple message about living life right now, being present, being aware of your thoughts, your feelings and your life.  It contains some effective short exercises to help you notice how you react and how you direct your focus at any given moment.  I think this book could change your life.

This book ties in beautifully with the recent ‘The True You - Discovery Workshop’ that my colleague Cim Bartlett and I have run,  our next eagerly awaited date has just been launched and it’s on Friday 4th December.  You can find more details on my website.

Let me ask you this question, ‘If you’re not you’re feelings, who are you?’.  Have a think and let me know your answer in the comment section below.

My last piece of advice, why not put this book on your Christmas list!

Go on network, connect!

Today, I have been to a Ladies at 11 networking meeting in Woking www.ladiesat11.com and boy was it a great meeting or what?  We had a great group of ladies there all promoting their businesses and all connecting. 

Judith Davis, Breathwork Practitioner gave us a great demonstration of how, by not breathing properly, and using the full capacity of our lungs we are holding onto bad thoughts and increasing stress levels in our bodies.   Thanks Judith is was really interesting. 

After chatting with other members, I left the meeting feeling lifted, bright and happy.  Not bad for an hour and a half of work is it?

So, if you’re sitting in your office or at home and you’re feeling negative, non productive, alone, sad, dissillusioned. GET OUT THERE!  CONNECT!  You’ll feel heaps better for it!

My top tips for connecting:

1.  Pick up the business card of a client or a colleague you haven’t spoken to in ages, call them, just to say hello and how’s it going.

2. Find a networking meeting nearby and make a promise to yourself to go.

3. Arrange to meet anther local business person for coffee.

And let me know how good you feel when you’ve done it.  I promise you will.

Shoes, glorious shoes

What is it about shoes?  I love the fashion for beautiful high-heeled, jewelled, brightly coloured gorgeous, gorgeous shoes.  Problem here is I don’t buy any – I always look at them, think I’ll never be able to walk in them or they’ll sit in my wardrobe and never be worn.  So, imagine my surprise when I took a sneaky look at some shoes on a recent business trip into London.  Tried some on and not only were the comfortable – they looked fab too!  Sadly, the shop didn’t have my exact size, so I left dissappointed.  Looked on the web when I got home, none there either.  So I went the next day to another branch and they had my size.  Yippee!  Went out for a girls night out last night, had to wear my new shoes (naturally!), felt a million dollars, got complimented on my legs and had fun.  I love my new shoes….I feel like I’m ten years old again!

The moral of this story, never say never……..it’s just a limiting belief…..just think what you might be missing!  Oh and go out and buy some shoes!

Free Your Mind – Get Brain Space!

Do you ever feel that ‘something’ is stopping you?  Do you ever feel that you go along with clear thoughts and plans and then ‘something’ makes you wobble and go off course?  I know just how frustrating that feeling is and how irritating the effect of that ‘something’ can be.  With this is mind I have devised a one-off coaching session that will help you to find that ‘something’ and get rid of it.  It’ll help focus on where you’re going, what is going on and how you’re going to get there.  One of lovely my clients called it ‘brain space’.  She had room to think, room to plan and room to fit everything into her very busy life.  If you want to book one of these extra special sessions, please contact me at sue@thecoachingzone.co.uk.  Be prepared to take action!

Just think what taking action will get you:

More clients, more money, faster weightloss, a new relationship, a new job, fitter, healthier…..the list goes on!

What are you stopping for – contact me today.

Make your own good news!

With news of growing figures of redundancies and more predicted to come, swine flu spreading, a rainy August, it doesn’t make you feel good does it? 

So, instead of reading all of the bad news, why not take some time to make yourself feel happy, write your own good news.  Make a list of all of the lovely things in your life, everything and everyone you love – all of your good news.  Read things that make you smile, watch favourite old movies that make you laugh.  And if you haven’t seen it already….watch Kung Fu Panda….you’ve got to smile at that big old black and white hero!

Habits – Bad or Good?

I’ve just recieved an email from a client who has come to realise she has bad habits.  There are things that she does regularly every day that bother her, I smiled as I read her email as I realised she’s not alone.  I could recognise a few habits of mine I’d like to change.  There are also habits I’m glad to keep, we need habits or routine to get us through every day.  Get up, get washed, get dressed.  They’re all good habits, they keep us busy and it’s just part of daily life.  They serve us.  It’s the bad habits that need to change.  The ones that don’t serve us.   These could be to exercise regularly, to eat healthily, to make decisions quickly, the list goes on.

Habits are also a useful way to remember and do the things we learn, the new skills we acquire. the more we do them, the more they become part of us.  Think about something that was once completely alien to you and is now part of daily life, for example, driving a car, riding a bike, using a mobile phone.  All of these things once learned became habits, things we could repeat easily and effortlessly. 

Having this ability to repeat habits means that we tend to keep habits that we don’t want, for example; smoking, procrastination, staying in bed too late, over-eating.  The good news here is just as we can learn to do things we can un-learn by doing something else.  We can learn a new good habit to replace and old bad habit.  All we have to do is get started.  So why not write a list of three bad habits you could change today and write down what you’re going to do instead.  Then start behaving ‘as if’ these new habits were already part of daily life.  Keep going with it and soon your new habits will become part of a new you.

Remember, it’s never too late to change your way of thinking

Swine flu – really?

Swine flu.  The world is gripped by a fever, everywhere you look you hear stories, statistics, facts, details, concerns, scare stories, they’re all there.   I wonder what is worse, the worry and anxiety about contracting swine flu or suffering the virus itself.  This situation could relate to so many instances in life.  We all seem to be good at predicting the future.  Some people will tell you quite categorically that something will happen one way and that’s the only way it will happen.  As a Life Coach, it is my business to work with clients so they notice that things don’t always turn out the way you plan.  We all waste too much of our time predicting what will happen instead of what is happening.

If you fully research the facts of swine flu, you will see that the risks are just the same as seasonal flu and in many cases it’s not as severe.  The people who have died, haven’t died directly of swine flu but of other causes.   The media still insist on printing the scare stories.

Something that is key in Life Coaching is to be able to reframe, to look at an issue or a thought from a different angle.  So while the world is at fever pitch, ask youself what really is going on, look at the facts rather than the scare stories.  Of course, take heed of the sensible advice offered by the NHS.  I’m not sure that I would recommend holding swine flu parties as some parents are considering in order to expose their children to the virus is a wise idea.  However be realistic, look at the positive side of the situation.  Assess your life, look for the good things.  Look for what you’re thankful for, believe in yourself, believe in a positive outcome and enjoy your  today.