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Getting No Bang For Your Buck?

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Working on our goals can be hard, but not always. Sometimes things just seem to come together and the actions we take support the outcomes we want in a very positive way. We know that if we keep going, we’re going to reach the point where we’ll experience success and see our goals manifest. But the reality is that this linear route to success is rare and instead most of us walk a winding road towards the achievement of our goals.

So just how does that work for the rest of us?

Do you ever feel the frustration of working so hard on your goals, but the results are slow in arriving? Or, maybe you’ve made some good progress but then you stall and your progress backslides? [Read more…] about Getting No Bang For Your Buck?

Need a Coffee?

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Do You Need A Coffee?

Did you wake up and smell the coffee this morning? It’s a great phrase isn’t it?  Conjuring a picture of steaming coffee and all the hope that it holds for waking up the sleepy recipient! And if you did get to have the proverbial coffee, did it do its job?

I know that without my morning cuppa I just can’t function, so this is a VERY important part of my day! It’s also a very enjoyable part of my day, when I can be slow to get going without feeling any guilt whatsoever!

But of course the phrase means more than just that superficial morning cuppa.

To some extent, we’re all walking through our lives with the sleepiness that precedes our morning cuppa. Oblivious of the direction our habits are taking us and just mindlessly trusting that we will arrive at our desired outcome with minimal conscious input and action.

You might think that things are going ok and that things will work out over the long term, but this could just be a cover. Sometimes it’s just too painful to dig beneath the day-to-day and admit that life isn’t quite as happy, fun or successful as you would like it to be.

But, without taking that deep dive into examining our achievements, and by this, I mean those things that make us happy, we just keep ploughing on with our day-to-day habits and thereby continue to achieve the same outcomes. [Read more…] about Need a Coffee?

Wrapping Up 2015

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Before we say a final farewell to 2015, I want to make a full record of how the year progressed, including what went well, what didn’t go so well or didn’t even happen and also the unexpected things that came our way!

As with most goals (plans) which cover an extended period of time, circumstances and events can and will conspire to knock you off course. My goals have been no exception to this, but, having said that, I’m happy with the outcome of the year and am already looking forward to doing it all again and better in 2016!

Goals That Went Well

Reading – I originally set out to read 18 books over the course of the year, but didn’t manage to fully achieve that number. However, I was able to read or listen to 10 books over the course of the year, which is worthy of a mention. [Read more…] about Wrapping Up 2015

Your Personal 212

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212_1aReaching Your Boiling Point

For anyone who’s interested in athletics, you may recently have been enjoying the Athletics World Championships held at the spectacular Birds Nest Stadium in Beijing. A host of athletes, competing for the top honours in their field, their sights on the gold medal.

But what does it really take to claim the gold medal? These athletes are, after all, world-class, so doesn’t that make it ‘easy’ for them? Well, maybe, if your name is Usain Bolt, but we’re not all built for running 100 metres in just 9.58 seconds!

It’s somewhat fitting, I think though that 212 degrees, being the boiling point of water is a great analogy for reaching the peak; for achieving success… for reaching our own personal ‘boiling point’.

Because, how often do we set out on the road to reach our goals only to fall short?  Somehow we go off the boil at some point during the journey. We lose interest or momentum and it can be nigh on impossible to re-kindle our enthusiasm and to get going again.

Persistence

“The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.”
— Roger Bannister

[Read more…] about Your Personal 212

Harri Davies Interview – Living The Music Dream!

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Harri_Davies!It’s not often that I get to meet a musician-in-the-making, but a couple of weeks ago I had the good fortune to be able to interview a budding new artist by the name of Harri Davies. ‘Budding’ might be too weak a word in this context as Harri has already been played on BBC Wales’ Adam Walton show, gigs frequently and will shortly be appearing at the Hay Festival on 30th May. In any event, meeting Harri was a delightful experience and I’m sure after reading about Harri, you will love him too!

I met Harri Davies one cold, wet Saturday afternoon at a coffee shop in Cardiff. The 21-year-old, tall, fair-haired and blue-eyed, greeted me with a bear hug like we were old friends, and, within just a few slurps of coffee, that’s how it felt!

Harri first embarked on his musical career at the age of 14 when he picked up a guitar and started working his way through genres such as blues, rock, jazz and soul. These days Harri is into acoustic jazz and working on soul in a pop-song format.

About the music

He tells me the most stressful part of the job is writing the song. “Songwriters experience ‘writers block’ in the same way as book writers…” this reminds me of a familiar scenario when he says that “we’re not in control of our inspiration”. So true, but we both agree that you’ve just got to keep with it, keep pushing until eventually the creative process takes form and comes to life. [Read more…] about Harri Davies Interview – Living The Music Dream!

Planning 2015 – are you ready?

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Planning 2015It’s time to start planning 2015!  The old adage that if you fail to plan you plan to fail starts to gather momentum at this time of year. As we advance towards the festive season, the busyness leading up to the big day takes over our lives and we often start to lose our way with our good intentions and plans. Couple with this, the increase in entertainment, food and general good cheer and it’s no wonder that things get a little out of control!

But as we all know, come January the 1st, we will all be feeling the effects of a tighter than usual waistband, our fitness levels will have succumbed to the allure of too many late nights and our good intentions to keep up with our homework, keep the clutter at bay or just be more mindful have drifted into no-mans-land!

We may also feel that we have run into an impasse and be questioning our life direction. We may want to make changes, but as yet we have not surfaced those changes into concrete plans and a list of actions.

Whether we like it or not, January is the time for planning 2015! Not just any old plan, but a life plan that specifies the things we want to have, see and do. We need a list of actions that will bring us to that place and we need to be ready to take action. But first and foremost, we must get planning! [Read more…] about Planning 2015 – are you ready?