Tiny Changes Make a Big Difference

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I heard a quote recently from an unknown source which said “I didn't come this far to come this far”. This represents so much doesn’t it, in that it depicts we’ve tried so hard to get where we’re at and we can’t stop now. This quote and the book I’m reading for the second time Atomic Habits by James Clear reminded me of how hard it is to break habits and to start habits and to understand the behaviour that sits behind this. One of the things James Clear talks about is how we can make a big difference by making small changes. For example, if we make just 1% change with something, in the short term it’s hardly noticeable, however, in the longer term it will make a big difference. The other book that goes well with Atomic Habits is Tiny Habits by B J Fogg. He has some

Focusing on the Right Things

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I read a post recently by an unknown source which read “Focus on the step in front of you, not the whole staircase”. I love this quote because it depicts an image to help us take one step at a time, not feel too overwhelmed of the huge task ahead and break a huge goal or aspiration down into small bites or steps in this case. I use driving analogies a great deal with clients, and one example of this is explaining that our journey is like driving a car. We decide on our destination and drive to our destination. At night we put our dipped headlights on. This enables us to see a short way ahead. However, by putting on the full beam headlights we can see much farther than before, noticing the bends, obstacles in the road and any signs that may spell danger or beware. This quote

Managing Our Self-Talk

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This week I wanted to talk about the words we use and how words, especially self-talk, affects how we come across to others and feel about the world. Isn’t it true that as humans we often beat ourselves up verbally? We might make a mistake, and all we can do is to keep playing that mistake over and over again. Negative self-talk like this is very harmful and detrimental to our health and wellbeing. Purposeful and planned self-reflection or self-appraisal is a helpful and productive thing to help keep the negative self-talk at bay, as this is self-sabotage and self-destructive. Trying to stop negative self-talk may feel impossible, however, with the right strategies in place we can turn this around and flip it on its head and start focusing on the positive self-talk. Here are some tips to follow: Reframing – Changing our habits, playing a new record with different

What’s Your Hard?

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I recently came across a poem from Mind Journal which inspired me to write this week’s blog to share with you. It reads as follows: Marriage is hard, Divorce is hard Choose your hard. Obesity is hard. Fit is hard. Choose your hard. Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard.Choose your hard. Communication is hard. Not to communicate is hard. Choose your hard. Life will never be easy. It will always be hard. But we can choose our hard. Choose wisely The Mind Journal What’s the underlying message with this poem? For me, it’s choices. Noting is easy, sometimes it feels like everything is hard, often just too hard, but we all have choices. We need to make the hardest choices sometimes to make things easier for us to do so. This way we are more likely to achieve what we want rather than just saying ‘it’s

Weathering Our Storms

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“Not all storms come to disrupt your life, some come to clear your path.” Paulo Coelho I came upon this quote recently which inspired me to write this week’s blog to share with you, as it got me thinking that sometimes the smallest things make the biggest difference, and sometimes the biggest things make the smallest difference. Whether it’s a storm or a shower, we have to weather the weather and ensure we have the right clothing, protection and strength to manage what’s to come. Often, we don’t know how long the storm is going to last, and if caught unawares, which we often are with the weather, then we can get wet, sometimes very wet. Getting wet, may be a good thing because it brings us back to reality, makes us consider or reconsider our path and direction to reach our anticipated outcome. It makes us stop and think,

Listening to our bodies sometimes means admitting defeat

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We have heard and use the term ‘we must listen to our bodies’ so much and more so when we are talking to others rather than listening to ourselves. A couple of weeks ago, I shared my ‘health scare’ with you. This journey along with listening and talking to others has inspired me to write today’s blog. I had a goal to walk the Tongariro Crossing with my walking group over the Canterbury Anniversary weekend. Despite my ‘health event’ I was still determined to do it! I’d been training for ages, that’s all our group was talking about AND it was our third attempt to do it. Of course I was still going to do it. Bearing in mind the weekend trip was more than just the crossing, involved others and was only three weeks after the ‘health event’. I was driven and kept my goal in my sights and

Let’s Start at the Beginning – or Maybe the End..

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As a business coach and mentor I’m often asked about exit strategies, end result, anticipated outcome or visions / goals for the dream. The reason for this is that we need to consider what our dream looks like and have this as clear as possible in our mind. Having a strategy or plan to start to build something is imperative, however, so is having a plan to sustain or grow, and to exit when the time is right. Can we plan our strategy to start and our exit strategy at the same time? Yes, we can, we almost have to because we need to see what the ‘after’ looks like for us, otherwise our journey may have been in vain. Having short, medium and long-term goals is a great place to start, this way we can identify exactly where to start and where to finish. The gap in between is

When the World Starts Spinning

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This week I thought I’d talk about my own recent personal experience and some takeaways which I thought might be useful to share with you. I’ve called this week’s blog ‘when the world starts spinning’ because that’s exactly what happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Image this: One minute your strolling along having a pleasant walk in the countryside on a warm sunny day when all of a sudden and out of the blue the world starts spinning. And I mean really spinning, without stopping, without warning! This is what happened to me; a significant vertigo event which I later had confirmed as being an inflammation of the inner ear and nerves to the brain. Since then, the feeling of permanently being on a small boat which is listing dangerously in the roughest ocean is how it feels and what the world looks like. When significant health issues

Are you GROWing as much as you’d like?

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GOAL REALITY OPTIONS WAY FORWARD There are some of us who find it real easy to set goals, write them down, keep them front of mind and achieve them. For others, this is not so easy, with goals being in their head, forgotten and not achieved. And a few who never set goals because they know they won’t achieve, so why bother. Whichever category you are in, you may consider instead focusing on GROWing rather than goals specifically. To grow we do need a goal, but before we determine our goal we need to clarify what we want and what that will give us. What’s exciting about it and really important to us. It’s about imagining us having achieved or succeeded, and really getting into the feeling of being there at the ‘end’. Create the picture, image or vision in your head. Once we do this we engage our emotions

Burnout Doesn’t Just Happen – It’s a Process!

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For those who have experienced burnout at some point in their lives or career, this won’t be too unfamiliar to you. For those who haven’t, you may find that understanding how burnout comes about and identifying the symptoms and behaviours might be helpful not only for yourself but for your friends, colleagues or maybe family who may be heading towards this without realising it. Burnout, despite what some may think, doesn’t just happen – it’s a process! Often once burnout has hit, and we’ve recovered we can look back and realise there were signs, symptoms, people noticed and said something, others were telling us to slow down or stop doing too much, but the power of hindsight, eh? There are various schools of thought about the stages, how many, how long they might last, and whether people experience all the symptoms or not. Either way, having a better understanding and