Are You Holding the Past & Missing the Future?

I was at a networking event recently in Bath’s glorious Holbourne Museum (if you get a chance go visit). There is something about that building that I just like. Is it the pleasing Georgian proportions? The modern glass structure at the rear? I don’t know exactly why but I really like it.  It feels right.

And one thing I particularly like is the way it has fused old and new. It’s had a brand new modern extension (tastefully not affecting the front elevation – from the front it looks as it ever was) which has enhanced it greatly. Of course, lots of people were anti the change but it’s been well done; it adds to the grandeur of the building, bringing it alive in the 21st century and of relevance to today. And of course, it’s useful! That’s a result in my book. Beauty and usefulness.

What’s Beautiful and Useful in Your Life?

Holding onto the past is not all bad. In fact, it can be positively life enhancing. If we hold onto the good and beautiful. Sometimes though we can get a bit stuck into holding onto all that is not so great about our pasts and allow it to define us.  For example, if you had a difficult schooling you may well allow that to influence all your attitudes towards learning and reject new ideas; new ideas which might add to the beauty and usefulness of your life.

Or a relationship which didn’t work may colour all future relationships you have because of  suspicion and cynicism. Or past mistakes in your current relationships may be an ever present malign influence if you can’t let them go.

Review Your Past

Take time out to think about the aspects of your past which enhance you, which ‘feel‘ right. That’s what you want to keep.  It makes you beautiful. However, some aspects may need to go into cold storage, and some will need to be jettisoned to make room for something new, to allow you to add something modern and beautiful and useful to you!

Here’s a quick personal development exercise to try! It’ll help you shape a beautiful and useful future!

The Secret of a Great Life!

How to change your life? It’s a question I’m often asked when coaching and here is an analogy I often use. If you’re feeling a bit stuck with life I hope it helps.

Do you ever get in your car, drive, and arrive at your destination (usually somewhere you go regularly like work) and not remember much about how you got there?

You’ve arrived and it’s taken you the same amount of time that it usually does but you were unaware of the journey. It passed in a haze. Maybe you were thinking about the day ahead, or the day just gone. Maybe you were fantasising about a dream life post huge lottery win!

We all do it and it can be a bit scary. What have we missed on the way?

Change Your Life

The reason we drive to work and have no memory of it is that our brains have developed that pathway; it’s a groove we easily slide into. So much so that if our holiday route begins with our work route we may find ourselves halfway to work before we realise. We’ve gone into auto pilot. We need that facility or we’d go mad (imagine having to remind yourself how to do every single thing you know. You’d go bonkers!) but if we live too much in the groove we miss out on so much of the possibilities of our lives.

The good news is it doesn’t have to be like that. Whatever age you are it’s never too late to start to live consciously, to make the most of your life. It’s only too late if you never start!

Change and Grow

So how to change your life? Well, for one thing you could investigate new routes to work and vary it now and again. You’ll notice so much more and quite possibly drive better too! And open up a new pathway in your brain!

And you can investigate new routes in your life too. The more you give yourself new challenges, stray from automatic pilot, the more life opens up its possibilities to you and the more rich your experience of life can be. Sometimes that means having a destination or a goal, sometimes that means maybe taking a risk and following your instincts.  The point is that whatever you are doing you are fully experiencing your life and not cruising through your precious life on auto pilot.

So, what could you change today to make your life great?

P.S Ten Tips for a Brain Work Out will help kick start your thinking!

Photo Credit- Niels Jansen

Are You Pot Bound?

I’m not talking illegal substances here! I’m talking about room to grow and ultimately blossom.

I re-potted a plant at the week end. I bought the plant ages ago in a supermarket sale which is not always a good place to buy plants but I felt sorry for it (honestly! Who knew supermarket shopping could be so emotional). I just knew I could revive it so I took the poor wee thing home.

I left it for a while on my office window sill and every day I looked at it and thought:

“I’m going to do something about you soon” But other things kept getting in the way and because it was in my office I wasn’t reminded of it at week ends when I was getting down and dirty in the garden.

Bloom Room

However, this week end I actually did remember to do something about it. I took it from it’s old pot, with difficulty, to find the roots had been trying to escape and were coiled tightly all around the sides. I gave it a good soaking, some feed, and a brand new pot and popped it back on my windowsill, thinking “you’ll look good in a week or two“.

Miracle Cure

I came onto my office this morning and was amazed! My plant is looking wonderful. It’s as if it’s had a huge great stretch and become beautiful and confident ( I read a lot into my plants and naturally I was coaching it during the stressful re-potting business…). It has come into its own and is clearly benefitting from the move to a bigger pot, a bit of TLC, and some food.

Do You Need to Move?

So, my question to you is: is it time for you to make a move?

• Do you have room in your current pot to grow and develop?
• Have you been thinking about doing something for a while but got pot bound without realising it?
• Are you a bit stuck with roots all over the place so that uprooting seems a formidable task?
• Do you need a bit of support to make changes? Some food, new soil? To let some light into your life?

It’s amazing what a move can do for you and you may see the results sooner than you think! Go on, be bold! Allow yourself to grow to your full potential!

If this is appeals to you, take a look at Are You Happy at Work for more advice and inspiration!

Are You Unhappy at Work?

One of the effects of our economic recession is that feeling that if you’ve got a job, you’d better hang onto it! That’s fine if you’re happy with your job, but what if you’re not? What if you’re really unhappy at work but can’t see a way out? There are always bills to pay and very few of us can take the risk of unemployment for any length of time, however tempting it feels on a Sunday night to just chuck it all in!

Research in Happiness at Work

Stephen Wood and L.M. De Menezes of the Cass Business School in London, published some research earlier this year* which supports what I have been saying for some time. When you can’t actually switch jobs, working on making your existing job better, improving your working life, will increase your sense of well being and happiness at work.

They advise trying to make your job as enriching as possible and taking opportunities to be more autonomous and grasp opportunities which may enhance your CV. So no falling into the “I won’t help ‘them’” trap as actually being more co-operative can actually help you!

They also found that knowing what was going on, being kept in the loop, helped employees feel more content with their lot. This is no surprise as in any times of stress and change we need to feel we have a say in what is happening, that we can exert some control somewhere in the process. And one way of doing that is to increase communication with your manager or your HR department. Find out what’s happening in your business, whether it’s your immediate company or your industry as a whole.

Plan Ahead for Next Job

Don’t see this time as ‘dead’ time. Yes, you need to hang in there for a while but there are still opportunities to plan ahead. Don’t wish your life away but a bit of judicious planning for the next step, when it becomes available, is good career planning. Maybe get yourself on a course within work, or invest in one yourself outside of work; (a lot of participants on my Renewyou course are doing exactly this).

If you don’t know what that next step is, but you do know that you don’t like what you’ve got, listen to my free visualisation and see what it comes to mind!

You spend a lot of your life working, so it needs to work for you as well as your employer! Make a start now on enriching your working life!

Photo Credit: Gokan Kohur
* High Involvement management, High Performance Work Systems…Journal of Human Resource Management 2011

If you’ve enjoyed this article, check out these 3 Essential Questions for Women

3 Essential Questions for Professional Women

How are you on waiting? Do you adhere to the old adage ” all good things come to those who wait”.

Overnight success is a myth. Or perhaps I should say sustained overnight success is a myth! It’s possible to get your 15 minutes of fame by winning a contest but look a bit deeper and you’ll probably find that they have been battling away for ages. And if they haven’t they rarely last the course. It’s important to have substance, to earn respect.

Don’t Wait Too Long

But some women wait too long! Yes, you need experience, knowledge, skills and talent but you don’t need to be perfect (see Qualifications Don’t Work).

So take a few minutes now to reflect on your career to date. How long have you stayed in a job before considering your next move? Do you know what your next move is? Or could be?

Plot your career path since leaving education. Write down each job you’ve had on a time line you’ve had and make a note when you started thinking about your next.

What prompted each move?

Were you reactive or did you plan it?

Do you have an end target on that time line?

Maybe Director by 30? Own company by 50? (If you read that and thought, 50? That’s too old, think again! I successfully changed career in my late 40s plus the population is ageing and our attitudes have to change too. Don’t fall prey to your own version of femageism. We’ll all be working longer so make sure you love what you do!)

If you want to get ahead, I recommend you think about a career plan: planning doesn’t mean you can’t be spontaneous or that you get stuck in a groove. It does mean that if you know where you are ultimately headed you’ll make better decisions along the route to ensure you get there!

Your Career Plan

Please do share your own stories of career planning or otherwise. If you have one is it helping? If not, why not?

Photo Credit: Everardo Ramirez

Inspire Yourself and Write that Book!

Readers of my newsletter will know that I regularly interview women who have done interesting things with their lives. Sometimes they’ve totally escaped the world of work, sometimes they’ve made it to the top of their chosen profession or are really successful businesswoman. But what they all share in common is that they have had a dream and followed it.

Which is what makes them inspirational!

Women Writers

I know that many of you are budding writers so today I have selected three women for you here who have all published books. Read their interviews with me and be inspired to start your own opus!

Sarah Sheridan, who has written 8 novels to date! I hate to categorise but if I must I guess her genre is historical fiction. Brilliant reading and well researched historical detail.

Chris Webber is a psychotherapist who has written a fascinating book about growing older and is working on another. It’ll change your attitude to ageing!

Morag Joss who has won awards for her fiction, loosely described as crime, or mystery. You may have seen some of her work on TV. They are a great read!

I hope you enjoy the interviews and but most of all I hope they inspire you to follow your own dream!

Photo Credit: Mattox