Being in Control with Pride, Passion & Purpose

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As we work through the beginning of the year, I thought it would be good to talk about clarifying what we can control and what we can’t. What’s the saying? “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” Let’s look at what is out of our control for a minute. The past and the future – all we can be in control of is our present. What’s gone has gone and whilst we can plan for our future in the present, we can’t control the future. Actions and opinions of others – we can spend so much time trying to manage situations with others and when bad feeling, conflict, misunderstandings or upset occur, we can try so hard to control this often without success, which can affect our wellbeing. What others think of

Starting the Year off on the Right Foot!

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Welcome to the beginning of a new year, 2023. How can we start the new year, 2023 on the right foot? Did you do the reflections from last week’s Wednesday Wake-Up!? To be able to start on a good note we need to know what to let go of, what to take forward and determine if and when we need to change direction, whether this is a slight change or a drastic change of course altogether. What do we need to start or stop doing? What do we need to do more of or less of? Remember we all have choices, and we should use them well and positively. Consider what those choices are and put them into practice by changing them into goals, SMART goals that will keep us on track, measure our progress, motivate and encourage us and help us when we are likely to procrastinate or go

The End of Another Year

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As we near the end of another year, it’s a time of reflection which can mean celebration and achievement, or regret and remorse. To enable us to review, reflect 2022 and what’s it’s meant to us we should structure how we look at our achievements and challenges in a way that can help us move into 2023 in a positive way. What did you learn about your business, or you as a business owner? What did you learn about yourself in work or as a parent, manager or leader? What positive relationships did you make; and did you make the best of these? What negative relationships did you make that you can perhaps avoid making again? What was your best idea, creation or achievement that made the biggest impact or difference this year? Review and Celebrate – Answering the questions above by writing them down so you can see the

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