Are You Wasting August?

It’s probably a quiet time where you work right now. August is generally slow and quiet and it feels like over half the work force has taken leave. No one schedules meetings because no one will attend, no papers come out because no one will read them, no new initiatives are launched etc, etc.

Your diary is probably as empty as it ever gets.

So, what opportunities exist for you? Right now, what can you do to add value to your career? Raise your profile? Don’t waste your time, or fill it with’ catch up ‘activity, but use it to invest wisely in you!

Picture Credit: Hilde Vanstraelen

Change Your Future with This Simple Exercise

When you look back, what will you see? Will you be looking back in anger, sorrow, or joy?

The future is yours to create, right now.

Your Personal Development Exercise

Take a few moments to imagine yourself five or ten years from now. You’re sitting in a cafe, with a friend and you’re both reminiscing. Maybe you have a glass of chilled wine, or a mug of coffee or a cup of tea.

You’re really happy with what you’ve achieved over these last few years. You listen contentedly to your friend describing her life and now it’s your turn. What are you going to say? What do you want to see when you look back and share some significant events in your life? What would make you proud of yourself?

Focus for a few moments on the following key areas in your life and consider what, if anything, you want to change:

• Significant Others?
• Career?
• Where you live?
• Friends or family?
• Places you have visited?
• Hobbies or pastimes?
• Add your own…

What do you have to do now, this week, this month or this year to make those reflections become a reality? To allow yourself to look back in JOY, to be proud, content and fulfilled in your life?

Photo Credit: Ivan Freaner

You Can Talk to Yourself!

An odd little email plopped into my box the other day. It said: “Now you know this works you can tell everyone about it”.

I thought it was a particularly clever advertising campaign, well maybe a too clever by half campaign, as I couldn’t work out what it was advertising!

And then I realised it was an email I had sent myself a year ago. I’m not actually as mad as a box of frogs but I have discovered Futureme.org, and now I know it works I can tell you about it! (And I’m not being sponsored to do this – it’s a free service).

Keep Motivated

When I’m running my Renewyou course I give participants the offer of sending themselves a motivational letter which I post on at an agreed time. But now I also offer them the opportunity to use futureme to send themselves more frequent reminders of their intentions and to keep themselves on track.

Try it out and while you’re there take a look at some of the ‘open’ messages. Some are heartbreakingly sad and some are very amusing; here’s one example:

Of course, you never get to know the answers and can only wonder what actually happened.  But rest assured, you don’t have to make your email public. You can choose to tick the public or private box.

What would you write to yourself about?

Photo Credit: Julian Tromeur

Cool Women Know There is More to Life Than Shoes!

I have to share this with you, dear readers, wait for it– I am officially cool! I know, age 55 and my time has come!

Yesterday I received a book in the post, which is not unusual as I often get them sent to review. Some never see the light of day as I choose only to review books that I think will be useful to you, and are a resource for women I’m happy to have on the site.

This one was slightly different as it had a note saying, “Dear Jane, here’s your copy and thank you so much for contributing!” The book is called ‘There’s More to Life Than Shoes‘(Amazon link). At that moment (It had been a long day) I couldn’t actually remember what I had contributed so turned to the back of the book to read:

‘Nadia Finer and Emily Nash were stuck in jobs that didn’t match their dreams, when they decided enough was enough, and set off on a mission to find the country’s coolest women and ask them for advice‘

Cool Women

Amongst the country’s coolest women in the book are BBC presenter of Newsnight and Desert Island Discs, Kirsty Wark, founder of the amazing Kid’s Company, Camilla Batmanghelidjh, Emma Bridgewater of pottery fame, Martha Lane Fox, founder of lastminute.com and so on. I thought at first, there must be a mistake, I can’t be in here, I thought. But I am.

I will review the book in a future post (totally without bias, of course but buy it!). The reason I wanted to share this with you is that almost to the day, 7 years ago I totally gave up my day job (I’d gone part time for the last year), to launch myself into running my own business, Changing People.

My day job was secure, I was well respected and on the career trajectory; the only way was up. But I looked up and knew it wasn’t where my heart was. With the support of my amazing family and friends I took a leap into the dark, gave up my salary and pension, and set myself up in my own business and changed my life dramatically and wonderfully.

BBC

If you had told me 8 years ago that I would be chatting to researchers on BBC’s Woman’ s Hour, appearing on an hour long radio show as a guest, being featured in my local paper on a regular basis, having my advice sought after by national magazines, been the keynote speaker at large conferences and smaller networking events, written my own book, devised my own best selling courses, and helped thousands of women make positive and lasting change in their lives I would probably have thought you were mad! And I would have been wrong.

Go For It!

If you have long held dreams in your life don’t abandon them. Take them out and dust them off. Be true to yourself. Most things are possible if you really put your mind to it. Focus your energy where you want your results. Don’t waste time bemoaning your lot, but spend that time much more profitably changing your lot. It can be done. Trust me, I’ve done it!

Photo Credit: Sharon Pruitt

Women and Confidence

I was listening to Deborah Meaden recently, a hugely successful businesswoman and member of the Dragon’s Den TV programme panel.

Deborah was asked why there are so few women in business at her level. She replied that lack of confidence in their own abilities was a huge factor. She used one image which rang so true from my coaching experiences. Deborah described a group of women at a networking or business event, all very successful high achievers. And she said, everyone of them will be wondering why they have been invited and are there in the company of such amazing women!

It is so true! I have spoken with countless women who have a ‘I will get found out one day’ feeling! They think that they are not as good as other people perceive them to be! We know this from research; women consistently undersell themselves on C.V.s, at interview, ask for less money for jobs, bank loans etc.

Come on women, time to sit up straight(!) and know your own worth. Deborah told you so and who are you to argue with her!

By the way, Deborah has a book out, Common Sense Rules which you can order via Amazon or any good bookshop!

Will You Keep Your New Year Resolutions?

It’s a good game, isn’t it – making massive resolutions in January so you can have guilt pangs about not sticking with them all through February! We’re probably all triumphs of hope over experience when it comes to making New Year resolutions.

Richard Wiseman, a UK psychologist, undertook some research into new year resolutions; his team tracked over 3,000 people attempting to do a whole range of things, like losing weight, using the gym, quitting smoking or drinking less.

Men and Women ARE Different

Perhaps unsurprisingly to all of us who have not managed to keep our resolutions going past Valentine’s Day, they concluded that New Year’s Eve is not a great time for making resolutions, and that you have more chance of success if you plan ahead for the changes you want to make.

They also found some interesting gender differences in achieving success. For men, the secret of success lies in setting specific goals and focusing on the rewards you will get if you achieve them. For women, the best way to keep a resolution is to tell people about it. At the start of the project 52% of the participants were confident of success but Dr Wiseman found that only 12% actually kept to their new year resolutions…

Men

Men were 22% more likely to succeed when they set goals for themselves, such as losing a pound a week rather than losing weight in general. In addition, men tended to succeed when they focused on rewards, such as losing weight to become more attractive to the opposite sex. “Men may be more likely to adopt a macho attitude and have unrealistic expectations, and so simple goal setting helps them achieve more,” said Dr. Wiseman.

Women

Women were more successful at keeping their resolutions when they told family and friends about their plans. They also responded better to encouragement not to give up if they snuck back to old habits temporarily – such as treating a chocolate binge as simply one minor setback and not a total failure. Telling others increased women’s chance of keeping resolutions by 10%, although sometimes they were reluctant to do so, losing a valuable source of support. (See this article about the importance of  women’s friendships)

Most Likely to Succeed

The researchers found that the resolutions most likely to succeed were:
Enjoy life more, (32% of people stayed with it)
Improve your fitness (29%)
Lose weight (28%)
Be more organised (27%)
Quit or cut down drinking (25%)
Quit or cut down smoking (24%)

What’s your most frequently made resolution?

You can read more about this in The Luck Factor by Dr Richard Wiseman available from your local library, book shop, or via Amazon