Take a Fresh Look

I have just been away for ten days or so on a writing break (look out for my new ebook soon!). We arrived home last last night with the energy to do nothing but fall into bed. This morning, however, I had a glorious surprise.

During my few days absence my garden has burst into bloom. Everything looks totally different and utterly gorgeous and I am relishing it to the full. The small tight buds which were modestly clinging to the branches when I left have now burst out into glorious, trollopy, rapturous colour and scent. It was literally breathtaking.

Yet, if I had been here as the buds began to unfurl I probably wouldn’t have noticed such a transformation. I would have appreciated it, most definitely, but I doubt I would have seen the full effect as I am now, or that it would have had such an impact, because I would have been living with it on a daily basis. We just don’t fully appreciate the incremental changes.

Your Life

And life is a bit like that, isn’t it? We don’t always notice out achievements and acknowledge our successes because we’ve been so busy pursuing them. We’ve been so busy living our lives that sometimes we forget to take a few moments to stand and stare, and acknowldege just how far we have come.

Try it now; close your eyes and imagine you are describing your life for someone else. You’re only going to highlight achievements and successes because we spend enough time doing the other thing. Just think how far you have progressed and travelled and the skills and experiences you have acquired; bask in those thoughts for a moment before plunging right back in there!

Photo Credit: Neil Witty

No 2. You Can Be Fabulous in 2011!

Making significant change in our life is not always easy.

I’ve just been for a walk around the village I’ve lived in for over 30 years. Years ago a whole new development was added changing many of the footpaths. As I was walking today I found myself trying to take a defunct footpath. It hasn’t been there since my son was in a pushchair (he’s now 24!) yet my brain had that old pathway stored away and, because I wasn’t concentrating, led me up it!

And that’s what can happen to us with our new year resolutions. We want to make a change and all is well initially. But then we drop our focus for a moment, the work piles in, we get busy, or bored, or miserable and suddenly we’re back on an old pathway!

How Do YOU keep on Track?

What would work for you to keep you on track? It’s worth spending a little time anticipating that inevitable drop in enthusiasm and doing what you can now to keep your self focussed on success.

For example, if you use a paper diary, write an encouraging note to yourself for a month’s time. Or a pop up message on your mobile phone, or electronic diary. Or negotiate with a friend to help you; give them permission to remind you of your resolve! Perhaps you need to plan in a reward for yourself at an appropriate stage in proceedings? Or even take some professional advice and support?

You know best what works for you, so try and plan that in to give yourself the best chance of success and achieving your resolutions for 2011! And if you haven’t done so already, you could sign up now for my newsletter, which is packed full of inspiration and helpful tips to help you be fabulous in 2011!!

Are You Frightened of Success?

Are you your own worst enemy when it comes to success? Sometimes the main thing holding you back from success is you, you may be self sabotaging without even realising it. Fear of being successful is holding you back.

But of course I want to be successful!

Of course you do! Or do you? As much as losing one’s job brings about unasked for change, so does getting a new one. Except in the latter case everyone is pleased for us and expectations are high…

Another example; you may be single and have told friends you are looking for a new relationship; that you feel ready to move on but the right people just aren’t out there. Friends rally round to introduce you to new people, tell you about dating sites, offer advice.

But you take no action. In your head there is always a good reason why you resist all offers of help. It’s the wrong time, you’re going to lose weight, you’re really busy at work, if it’s meant to be it’ll happen.

Or maybe you are bored and miserable in your job. Yet you stay, grumbling about it daily but taking no action to get out of the rut you find yourself in. Then a new job comes up which has everything you want and you meet all the requirements. It’s a bit of a step up, but in your heart you know you can do it. So you send for all the information, have a great informal discussion with the HR person and then miss the application deadline.

In both cases you are self sabotaging and if you want to make a positive change in your life you have to discover why you do it.

Coaching Questions

If self sabotage rings true for you, try to honestly answer these questions about yourself:

• Are you frightened of change, even when it’s positive.
• What’s your track record with change?
• Do you spend so long analysing situations that you become paralysed with all the possible outcomes so you do nothing?
• Do you hold particular self limiting beliefs, such as ‘I’m not good enough’
• Do you get attacks of ‘Imposter Syndrome‘ believing that everyone else is better than you so you tell them about your faults before they ‘unmask’ you? (In my experience this is very common with women – don’t focus on your shortcomings, talk about your strengths!)
• Do you procrastinate so take so long to do something that the deadline passes, or action is never taken? This way, you’re always working toward to it but never quite get there.

If you’ve ticked any of the above, don’t despair! You can change. You have got stuck in a pattern of behaviour that can be altered, a new pattern can be introduced to replace the old one.

Step one is being honest with yourself. You need to know what it is you want and what it is that stops you getting there!

YOU CAN BE SUCCESSFUL!

If you have successfully tackled any self sabotaging behaviours, or have some tips to share, I’d love to hear from you!

Your Success!

Most of us would say we want to be successful in life. But we would probably all differ in what we think of as success.

My idea of success might be your idea of not that wonderful and vice versa!

So take a few moments to try this:

What does being successful mean to you? Go with your first thoughts!

Success is……………………………………….

Success is……………………………………….

Success is……………………………………….

Success is……………………………………….

Success is……………………………………….

Did your answers come out as you thought they would?

Inquire Appreciatively!

Appreciative Inquiry is based on the principle of doing more of what works, and not getting bogged down in the negativity of what doesn’t!

So here’s a simple exercise for you:

What works really well in your life right now?

Why is it working so well? What is your role in this, what skills, qualities and attributes are you bringing to bear on the situation?

What could you be doing more of in order to bring more of this success into your life?

You Are Fabulous!

You are you know! I work with people of all ages, backgrounds, education, culture and class and I never cease to be amazed at how wonderful and resourceful people are.

But it’s true that we are often the last people to see our own strengths, skills and positive attributes. So I suggest you try this exercise now, and next time you feel down, take it out and look at it!

You might want to take a look at this change exercise first and use it as your resource for the following.

Three Things

I want you to think of three things that have been a great success for you. For example, three things for me might be:

1) Being the first female chair of the Medway Schools Council when I was 18.
2) Passing maths GCSE when I was 34 (I had been to two universities by then but maths passed me by until I decided I had to conquer the fear!)
3) Organising a successful party on our 25th wedding anniversary with 200 guests and a secret Elvis impersonator!

Your list will be different because it’s about you! You may well have got maths O level/GCSE easily so will be wondering why I include it here. I didn’t get it easily I tell you!

Never compare yourself when talking about your personal development; it really doesn’t matter what anyone else does. This is about YOU and how fabulous you are!

Once you have your list I want you to think about all the positive aspects of you that helped you to that success. And I want you to write them down. And I want you to own them, as in just don’t put a list of random words but write, ‘I am great at organising’, ‘I am kind hearted’ etc.

Yes, you will feel daft because we don’t do this type of thing often, but this is private so don’t worry. And you will feel better and you will see that you are fabulous! And being fabulous once means that you can be fabulous again! And again! You are fabulous!