When we think about taking a leap forward, we may initially think of a reactionary jump rather than a planned leap. When we do make that leap, we need to be mindful what we might land onto or into! You will be aware of the phrase ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’ which is used to describe the situation of moving or getting from a bad or difficult situation to a worse one, with this often being the result of trying to escape or flee from a bad or difficult situation. Of course we want to avoid this, instead taking planned leaps into or onto something better or more positive. Whether we are talking personally or professionally, work or business we can apply the same methods. Look at L-E-A-P below and see how you can use these steps to progress in a planned way to move forward and
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How much do you challenge yourself?Why do you challenge yourself?Do you challenge yourself for the right reasons?Do you benefit from challenging yourself? What if we paused, pondered and reflected? What would that do and how might it help? What if we prepared, planned and regenerated? Imagine what difference that would make? What if we told ourselves to never give up, never be scared and to be strong! I’m sure we would be more confident, motivated and productive! Challenging ourselves needs to be done in a positive constructive way Where we are kind to ourselves and not harsh Or setting unrealistic goals or too many tasks We may be working hard or hardly working, having a feast or a famine, and constantly trying to better ourselves. Remember trying is just as important as succeeding, effort just as important as achievement – becoming is much better than being! Take these SIX steps
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It’s interesting when clients, colleagues or friends say they wish they had engaged a business coach & mentor earlier or sought help and support from a source they identified when they needed it, they would have saved themselves a great deal of time and possibly money. We know the saying, ‘prevention is better than cure’ but how much do we practice this? Boiling this down, the question really is how proactive or reactive are you? How much do you plan for the unexpected? Have you identified potential issues, blocks, risks, challenges and created a plan of action? And of course if not, why not? There are a lot of reasons why we don’t do what we know we should do when we need to do them, instead of procrastinating or avoiding them until we end up in dire situations or reap the consequences of putting something off that was urgent
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As you may already know I get my inspiration from many sources and this week it came from a poem I saw in a shop which talked about the traits of a willow tree. From this I thought I would use the Willow Tree as a metaphor and see how we may use some of our existing skills or adopt some skills we didn’t previously have to become more like a Willow Tree. The Willow Tree is felt to be the rebel of the tree world in that it is anything but conventional; and zigs when other trees zag, its roots are intriguing and daring in that they seem to find their way past or through every obstacle that may be in their way. They have the flexibility to bend when other trees break even in the fiercest storms, taking these challenges in its stride. It constantly reinvents itself, continually
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Now is the time we need to be considering what we want to achieve personally and professionally whether in work or in business. We do need to think about what we want the end result to be i.e. where do we see ourselves by the end of 2021. We need to take into consideration what support we might need, what challenges we might face and what obstacles may get in your way. We may need to upskill, this may be reading books or signing up to a course or workshop. We might want to consider where we want to stretch ourselves, which areas are we less strong or knowledgeable in where we could minimise our lack of knowledge or reduce our weaknesses. But, where to start? It may feel like a mammoth task, feeling like there’s a whole lot of ‘work’ to be done before you can even set those
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Are you focusing your attention on your intention?What are your intentions?Do you have any intentions?Is your attention in focus? Before we can set our intentions, we need to identify where our attention lies and check we are being attentive in the right areas to do the right things. Then we can determine what our intentions are and aim to keep them. But first we need to determine what the difference is between intention and attention. Attention usually is observing or listening on something or someone, paying close attention and taking in what we are seeing or hearing. Intention is usually a course of action taking us from where we are at present into something we picture as being our future, where we might see ourselves. An intention is our goal or aim, our purpose, something we intend or mean to do, determined not to put it off and not to
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We’re at the time of year where New Year’s resolutions are made and where we reflect on those made at the same time last year which were broken or unfulfilled. We repeat the same pattern with plans for our life, personal or professional goals. We aim to make things better for our business or work in the hope that these goals will keep us on track, focused on stretching ourselves to achieve success. Have we ever thought about why we don’t fulfil our ambitions or achieve our goals? Is it a good thing to repeat the cycle by doing the same thing every year with the same unfinished outcome! Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing hoping for a different outcome when instead we just have the same outcome each time? You might be interested instead of examining why you haven’t completing those goals in the past.
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Looking back on 2020 what might you have said was one of the good things to come out of the year?What might have been one of the toughest challenges you had this year? We even refer to ‘before’ or ‘after’ lockdown or COVID-19 like we would usually refer to this year or last year! Upon hearing what clients, friends, colleagues and family have said, despite the awfulness of the global crises with the pandemic and the changing climate, I have yet to hear anyone who didn’t benefit from lockdown in more ways than they might have originally anticipated. We had things thrust upon us believing we couldn’t cope when for the most part we rose to each challenge, stress, problem that was put in front of us, managing to gain something positive from which initially was the biggest disaster of our lifetime. Now of course as we are nearing the
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As we start to wind down for the end of the year reflecting on what a year it’s been and how we’ve faired on a personal and professional level, as well as starting to prepare for a new year, and wondering what might be in store for us, we need to start with how we can manage ourselves and our well-being. When we start with ourselves, we need to look at how confident we are and determine how much we believe in ourselves. We need to be aware of this before we even contemplate planning for a new year otherwise, we are unlikely to achieve our goals. Our self-belief and self-confidence often take a battering during difficult and stressful times, so let’s start with what they are, why they are different, what the difference is between them and why they are important. What is self-confidence? Self-confidence is our ability to
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Whether you are a goal person or not and whether you are a list person or not, I’m sure you still have goals, aims or visions of what you want to achieve in life. Often these are wish lists or ‘if I won lotto’ thoughts, but if we put our mind to it, we can achieve what we want. If this is the case, then why aren’t we all achieving what we want in life? Usually there is something that prevents us or hinders us from doing so, and that ‘something’ is usually us. What we think, feel, or the way we act becomes the barriers or obstacles that hold us back. As parents we tell our children they have choices and can do and be what and who they want, and life is what they make it, so we need to follow that great advice we give them and
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