Let's Connect!

Achieve Your Best Life

Live your life your way

change

Are You Looking for Peaceful Moments?

by

streamDo you lead a frenetic life and crave those peaceful moments that allow you to drift away?  Or is your life calm and pretty much running as you would like?  Most people, I guess, will be living somewhere between these two extremes and will experience periods of calm countered by periods of relative chaos!

Picture this:  it’s been a stressful day in work – as well as dealing with your so called day job, you’ve dealt with panicky clients on the phone, your boss has had you running around putting out fires, plus you’ve had to take multiple phone calls from home as your children are on half term.  By the end of the day you’re completely frazzled and want nothing more than a chilled glass of wine and a hot bath! [Read more…] about Are You Looking for Peaceful Moments?

Ratchet It Up!

by

ratchetYears ago I worked with someone who frequently used the phrase “ratchet it up!”.  I remember one particular meeting when we were discussing new skills, knowledge and methods his team would need to learn and adopt in order to successfully install and implement a new set of software programs which would, if used properly, revolutionise the way his team currently did their work.

During the discussion Bill (not his real name), kept reminding us that it wasn’t just the importance of the new software that needed to be discussed, but also the need to “ratchet up the skills of his team”!

He was completely right of course.  As the old adage goes, ‘garbage in, garbage out’ – if his team weren’t appropriately trained and re-skilled, then the new software would be as useless as if it had never been introduced in the first place.

But the real message from this little story is my appreciation for Bill’s foresight.   Too often, when new processes, software, skills etc are required it’s often assumed that people will acquire the knowledge through a process of osmosis, and to some degree this view may be correct; but often, even though we may pick up new skills ‘on the job’ this only allows us to learn to the extent that our co-workers have the required knowledge or it relies on our dedication in being prepared to pick up the relevant book.

Unfortunately though, this situation will leave us in the classic situation whereby we fail to realise what we don’t know!  It’s a challenge because if we don’t know that we don’t know, why would we go looking?!  And yet, even if we were the best at what we did, we still wouldn’t know all there was to know about our particular field of interest. [Read more…] about Ratchet It Up!

The Quote Series: 5 Quotes to Live By

by

stopnotToday I’m taking a little delve into my quotes book and have picked out five quotes which I personally find inspiring.  I hope you like them too!

Accept responsibility for your life.  Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.  Les Brown.

How often do we take personal responsibility for what happens to us?  Not just in the sense of wanting to be successful, but in the broader sense of looking at our immediate or wider circumstances?  If we’re facing a problem, do we look at it and wonder to ourselves what part have I played in this?  How could I have contributed to the circumstances that have created this experience that I am now living?

Take some time with this concept, because the more we ponder, absorb and accept its true meaning, the more freedom we will experience. [Read more…] about The Quote Series: 5 Quotes to Live By

You’ll See It When You Believe It!

by

bungeeBelieving in our own ability to achieve our lifetime goals is an assertion that most people will claim to have, however few will actually show their belief in themselves by taking thoughtful, deliberate action and moving themselves towards their desired outcomes in a persistent manner.

It seems that a lot of people think that belief is secondary, that they will “believe it when they see it”, but unfortunately, this puts the success equation the wrong way around, because, in order to achieve our goals we must believe in our ability to succeed in our plans.  In other words, we need to be able to accept that we will “see it when we believe it”!

Seeing it when we believe it is one of the reasons goal setting is important as it helps to equip us with a vision of our future, and if we can visualise our future, it gives us something tangible to work towards and creates a possible reality that we could manifest through action. [Read more…] about You’ll See It When You Believe It!

Is Your Reality Shifting? How To Live With Change

by

How To Live With Change

Do you profess to like change, or does change fill you with dread?  I guess, your answer would be, “it depends”, which of course it does.  It depends on the situation we currently find ourselves in – good, bad or indifferent, according to our own expectations; or, it depends on the area of our lives that’s facing the change as we may be more amenable to changes in, say, the workplace than in our personal lives; or maybe it depends on whether it is expected or unexpected change and how much control we believe we’ll have over the results of the change.

But, we only usually want things to change because we want some kind of improvement.  After all if everything was exactly as we wanted it, why would we seek change?  Sydney J Harris says:

Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.

An interesting thought in which I see some truth, although of course, application of this theory is impossible!  If we want to see changes in our lives, then by definition, we must change something.  The trick, I guess, is in making an acceptable change, knowing, that in making a change, other reactions will come into play.  This is like the cogs in a watch, with each turn of the cog pushing the next one along in order to initiate the desired result (the accurate display of the time). [Read more…] about Is Your Reality Shifting? How To Live With Change

Beat Temptation and Achieve Your Goals!

by

beat temptation

I absolutely adore chocolate, which as anyone who knows me will know is an understatement!  It’s my biggest temptation, the one thing that can see me tumble from the diet/healthy eating wagon if I’m feeling even just a little bit wobbly.  So you could say for me that chocolate poses a major temptation to achieving my health goals.

I know for certain that I’m not alone in feeling this way, we all have our pet temptations, things that will tempt us away from the unfamiliar or challenging goal path we are trying to negotiate.  But, as we know, overcoming our temptations can be a difficult task.  However, keeping on the straight and narrow will have the effect of strengthening our resolve to continue, whereas slipping away from our planned path tends to make us feel guilty and sometimes also a bit devil-may-care, resulting in us giving up on our goals altogether.

We think of temptation as something observable: that (delicious) bar of chocolate; that extra half an hour in bed so it’s too late for our morning jog; that extra cigarette, but, it’s the less tangible things that can really mess up our attempts to improve our lives. [Read more…] about Beat Temptation and Achieve Your Goals!