Articles covering Uncategorized
How to Tell Your Story (2)
A Coaching Exercise
In the previous post I described how we edit our own lives. Sometimes, without us being conscious of it we have given negative events a much bigger role in our past than they deserve; we have allowed them to become powerful influencers of our current lives.
Try This
This is an exercise I have used when coaching with all age groups, initially with young children who had been part of the care system, but I have found it’s just as helpful for adults.
Take a large sheet of paper and some pens. Start with your earliest memory and draw a box for every significant event in your life. Write the event in the box.
Your Memories
For example, I have a very vivid memory of my brother being born at home (well, it was January and a neighbour sent me to play in the garden – I was cold!) It was a significant life event because I stopped being an only child at age 4 and a half.
Other examples of significant events in my life include leaving home to go to University, my first plane trip to the US, my first experience of loss. The older you are the longer your list will be!
At this stage don’t worry about whether events are good or bad, just collect them. You may have several on the page and need more paper. Keep them in date order but wind about the page at will. It will take you some time.
Some years you may have several boxes of significance, and some will be relatively incident free.
After you’ve done this part of the exercise leave it for a while, hours or days; go off and do something else. When you return to it, look at it again with fresh eyes and check you’ve not left anything out.
Pause a While
Now you have your life in front of you, or specifically your memory of your life. These are some of the building blocks of your life (some you won’t have remembered.)
Using the data you have collected try writing down a few paragraphs about yourself for use in the following circumstances. In all cases you must focus only on the positives.
Three Scenarios
1) You are at a networking event and meet someone who you think could become a really good friend. They are bright and bubbly, and in the course of conversation they ask you to tell them about yourself, your life. You say…..
2) You have been for an interview for a senior post and are at the ‘trial by sherry’ stage. A senior member of the board says you seem to be really strong personality (which is what they are looking for). She asks you where your resolve to succeed came from. You say….
3) You meet an old friend you haven’t seen for over ten years. They ask you what you’ve been up to for last ten years. Remembering you are focussing only on positives, you say….
This exercise is not about putting on a false face, a mask, but being conscious of the image you choose to present to the world. We all edit our past- just make sure your good bits haven’t ended up on the cutting room floor!
More Favourite Quotes
“You cannot look in a new direction by looking harder in the same direction”
Edward de Bono
Just take a few minutes out of your busy day to think what might happen if you tried looking in a different direction today. Allow yourself to think the unthinkable.
Remember your current safe comfortable knowingness,(job, partner, etc.), was once unknown to you. It became safe and knowable because you first tried it out.
If you had no fear and could do one thing today to improve the quality of your life, what would it be?
Thank You!
At the risk of sounding like an over emotional oscar winner, I just want to say THANK YOU! This post is simply about gratitude: my gratitude to you for not only increasing the readership of this blog by over 200% in the last 6 weeks, but for supporting and encouraging me with your comments and emails.
Thank you all of you who have recommended it to others by word of mouth, sending links or clicking the share this button at end of each post, or book marked it, or signed up to RSS feeds.
Thank you to all who have taken the time to comment on the posts,or twittered about them, or retweeted them.
Thank you to all those who have forwarded the newsletter onto friends so that I can genuinely describe it as international with subscribers all over the world!
And finally, a most special thank you for all your AMAZING stories and comments, many of them sent to me privately (which I always acknowledge). You have warmed me, encouraged me, sometimes humbled me, but always inspired me.
THANK YOU!
Jane
Prioritise Your Life
Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed with the amount of things you have on your ‘to do’ list? We all do from time to time.
An Exercise to Try
Here’s a simple exercise I often use when working one to one.
Write a list of all your tasks. Mark them with following F G H & W categories:
F= Fun to do, i.e.things you actually enjoy and maybe even put them off because of that! Everyone needs fun to do on their list whether at work or home. (If your work doesn’t provide any fun to do tasks seriously think about changing youir job!)
G = Good for me to do i.e. they might develop you in some way, contribute to your well being, or help you at work. This might be attending a meeting, taking exercise daily etc.
H =Hell but must be done, i.e. those tasks that are the equivalent of emptying a smelly rubbish bin
W= Who gives a damn! Those tasks that get done because they have always been done but maybe need reveiwing and not get done any more! Like bureaucratic procedures that serve no useful purpose, or ironing socks!
You can get rid of the latter category because if no one really cares why do you continue to do them? Then plan in the tasks so you have some fun ones interspersed with the hell ones as rewards. If you haven’t got any fun ones invent some!
You may also find it helpful to invoke the thirty minute rule (see below)
Ellie Levenson, A Noughtie Feminist!
A Modern Day Feminist
Regular readers of the blog will know that I have oft despaired of the embarrassment (or worse indifference) I encounter when talking about feminism. I was therefore delighted to read a new book, just published, by journalist, Ellie Levenson, which tackles this topic head on.
Ellie (pictured) was kind enough to give an interview to the changingpeople blog so read on to find out more about Ellie and her Noughtie’s Girl’s Guide!
An Interview With Ellie Levenson, by Jane C Woods
Jane: You have just published ‘The Noughtie Girl’s Guide to Feminism’. Could you give the readers a 
summary of what the book is about?
Ellie:The book is about feminism in the noughties (this decade) and about looking at the many choices and issues that arise in our every days lives and how as women we respond to them. It also looks at what feminism is and tries especially to persuade people who say ‘I’m not a feminist but…’ and then go on to express lots of views I would consider to be feminist to reclaim the word and not be afraid to use it.
What prompted you to write a book on feminism?
A friend of mine wanted to read more on feminism a few years ago and found that while there were many books about feminism from an academic perspective, or written some years ago, there weren’t any that took an accessible look at our lives today. So I decided to write one. In fact there are some that already exist which are aimed at an American readership but I thought we needed one in the UK.
In the book you talk about 4 different types of feminists – the feminisnt, the unintentional feminist, the loud and proud feminist, or the accidental feminist. I like to think of myself as a loud and proud feminist but recognise bits of myself in all of them. Which are you?
I’m definitely a loud and proud feminist. I don’t see anything wrong with being a feminist and in fact I just assume people are until they tell me otherwise or act in an unfeminist way. The four types I identified include people who act in a feminist way without even thinking about it (unintentional feminists), people who become a feminist after facing discrimination (accidental feminists) and people who say ‘I’m not a feminist but…’ (feminisn’ts).
Do you remember when you first became aware of the idea of feminism?
I don’t – I just grew up with it being part of my life I think. It never occurred to me not to be one.
Ellie you are now a successful freelance journalist. When you left school did you have a clear idea of what you wanted to do? Did you plan your career?
I always wanted to work in the media – even my school work experience aged 14 was at BBC Westminster which I got after writing about 100 letters to different broadcasters. Initially I wanted to work in broadcasting and I volunteered on hospital radio while at sixth form and took part in TVYP (a young person’s weeklong masterclass at the Edinburgh International Television Festival) when I was 17 in 1995. But when I got to university (Manchester) I started writing for the students’ paper, then called Mancunion but now called Student Direct, and loved it.
So after a failed bid for the editorship I took a year off to go travelling then came home and did a postgraduate qualification in journalism and then got my first job for The Lawyer, a weekly business to business paper. I didn’t like it at all and started applying for other jobs on my second day there and left after four months. After some more travelling I came home and, after applying for every job in Media Guardian that week got a job editing Fabian Review at the Fabian Society. That was brilliant – I was in my early twenties and editing and meeting cabinet ministers and other important people. I’d been political before that and a member of the Labour Party but that changed my career really – it allowed me to start freelancing while in post and gave me all kinds of new interests.
Now I freelance part time and teach journalism part time and though I didn’t necessarily plan my career beyond being a journalist, I love the combination of teaching and writing and the autonomy it gives me.
Have you encountered discrimination/problems because of being a woman, or maybe because of being a feminist? (I did not change my name when I married in 1977 and the most venomous reactions, I am sorry to say, came from other women who accused me of not loving my husband enough! I was both amused and dismayed to see exactly the same comment was made to you almost 30 years later!)
I think I probably face discrimination every day because I am a woman, as do men, though it is part of society and not explicit. But I am also particularly interested in the constraints we place on ourselves because we are women – so we don’t put ourselves forward for the same promotions as men for example, or we censor what we want to wear or say.
Most women work in a world of work designed for and by men. It’s simply a fact. If you could imagine a world of work being designed by women for women what is the most significant difference you would envisage?
I don’t really buy into the idea that women would do things differently or that we can’t cope with adversarial situations and are better at communicating and softer skills. But the significant difference I would have is flexible family friendly working practices for men and women.
Who or what has been the most influential figure in your life?
My mum and dad, without a doubt, though also my friends, and since I got together with him two years ago my husband Richard. I think this is interesting because like many people I am most influenced by the people around me not by big name academics or famous people, though I obviously am affected by reading and listening to people outside of my immediate family and social life. That’s why my book looks at lots of little everyday issues like who does the washing or what clothes you wear, because it is the everyday issues and people in our everyday lives that we influence most of all.
If you could give the 18 year old Ellie one piece of advice, what would it be?
My favourite is a piece of advice Anne Enright wrote in her book about having children. She said that if she had any advice to give her daughter when she is older it is to have sex before you go out for dinner, not after! I’m not sure I’d have advice for myself – I’ve learnt from my mistakes as well as my successes.
Ellie thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us. I really enjoyed reading your book, and am sure it will get a wide readership. Thank you
If you’d like to buy Ellie’s book, ‘The Noughtie Girl’s Guide to Feminism’ you can click here and get it on Amazon.
And if you have any comments on Ellie’s book or this article, I’d love to hear them!
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
