Looking Backwards and Forward

I love to make use of the time between Christmas and New Year for a bit of planning and reflecting. It’s been a great year for me and lots of people I know.  I have added in a new area to my coaching and raised money for a charity close to my heart by wing walking (now that was a bit scary!). There's a picture below if you want a sneaky peak

So first a look back over the last year. 

Here are a few questions to get you going on your review of the year

• What was your favourite moment of the year?
• What did you learn?
• What new things have you done for the first time?
• Who have you met who has helped you make strides this year?
• What amazing things did you achieve this year?
• What did you want to achieve but didn’t?
• What were the best lessons you learned that you want to carry through to next year?

What are you planning for next year?

• What do you want to achieve next year?
• What’s your motivation for doing that?
• Do you need any help with your goals from other people?
• Do you need to learn any new skills to complete your plans?
• What resources will you need?
• How do you want to feel next year?
• Who do you need to become to achieve your plans

I hope these few questions have given you food for thought and you can get your 2015 off to a cracking start.

All the very best for a happy New Year

p.s. If you decide that this is the year you are going to be more confident, keep an eye out for my confidence raising master classes coming soon

Here's a picture of me doing my wing walk

Work and Relationships – A Balancing Act

At my networking meeting this morning I got chatting with a man who runs a travel company and another who in a previous job spent a lot of time travelling all over the world leaving little time for his family, friends and general life outside of work. This is a massive bugbear of mine.  One of the most fundamental areas which suffers when your work life balance is out of kilter are your relationships.

How many relationship breakdowns occur because one or other party is so busy elsewhere that their relationships with family and friends are put at the bottom of the priority list.  Partners can end up feeling feel put upon, ignored, and resentful. Not only of the time they don't spend with you but the impact on them of the lack of time investment. E.g. If one parent of a family is often absent the job of child care falls mainly on the other.  This is sustainable for bursts of time but if the absence continues for too long it inevitably puts strain on all the relationships in a family.

So what can you do to ensure your relationships don't pay the price?

Most importantly - reconnect with your 'Why'. Why do you go to work in the first place? Is it for the sake of the work itself, or is it to support your family. If it is the latter, then what changes can you make to ensure that you see and are able to enjoy the family you care so much about? How could you rearrange some of your work to make seeing people easier? Are you able to work from home sometimes? Maybe you can negotiate greater flexibility with your boss.

Ensure that when you are not at work you are fully present in the other areas of your life.  Leave your work emails alone, and turn the phone off. You are not indispensable to your work but you are to your family.

Make a decision to simplify your life. Are you working all the hours to pay for things you don't want or need to impress people you don't like? What can you do without? What is the best use of your time?

Make memories. If you have young children, I expect the last thing you want if for them to grow up thinking you have been a shadowy figure in the background. How would you like them to remember your role in their childhood when they are adults? Make an effort to have some really special times. They don't have to be expensive. Sand castles on the beach or building camps are the sorts of memories that endure just as much as big trips and outings.

Lastly – don’t take your relationships for granted. If you want to get on in work or business you know you will not get anywhere by not putting the effort in. Your relationships are exactly the same. Treat them like a precious plant. Feed and water them and they will flourish. Ignore them and – well you know what happens to uncared for plants...

Busy or productive? Be proactive

image courtesy of Freedigitalphotos.net

Most people I come across in my life as a work life balance coach are incredibly busy. In fact that's often what leads them to contact me in the first place.  They are often rushing from pillar to post juggling work, home, community and all sorts leaving barely any time for leisure and relaxation.

So how can you make your life more productive and less busy? How much of your time is spent reacting to situations? How could you be more proactive in your life?

Being proactive is all about taking charge. It's about making decisions and deciding in advance what you are going to be doing. To draw an analogy with computing, by being proactive you are being the programmer of your life. You are deciding what you are going to do and how.

Of course there is more scope for being proactive in certain situations. For example if you are self employed then you are much more likely to be in control of what work you do and when.  As an employee you can be proactive in other ways, like taking the initiative and anticipating what needs to be done. In addition to making you feel more in control of your life, your efforts will almost certainly be noticed by your seniors and will greatly increase your status and chances within the organisation if opportunities arise.

Taking charge, both in and out of work will greatly increase your effectiveness and productivity and reduce feelings of stress from feeling out of control.

Stephen Covey’s very first habit of effective people is Be Proactive.  In some cases you need to develop the courage to be proactive, especially if you are not used to taking charge. Start with small things and gradually increase the areas you are proactive in.

Simply taking the decision to be proactive is proactive in itself!

Caroline Love

www.stepoffyourstilettos.co.uk 

Do you need help to use your time more effectively and productively? Have you ever tried coaching? Would you like to?

The wonders of technology mean it doesn't matter where you live.

Contact me to arrange a free consultation about my coaching services. My step by step programme will help you get more from your allotted hours and give you time to do the things you want to do as well as the things you have to do. Send me a message or email Caroline@carolinelove.co.uk 

7 habits you can't be without

 

I was recently very excited to go on a course entitled the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The course was based on the book of the same name by management guru Stephen Covey. The book has sold over 15 million copies and been translated into 38 languages.

I figured 15 million people can't be wrong so I registered for the course hoping to bring back plenty of learning to share with my clients and make the achievement of a better work life balance a bit easier to attain. 

I wasn't disappointed. On the first day we were presented with a bag of materials including our very own talking stick to complement habit 5 - seek first to understand, then be understood (more about that later).

As it was such an action packed and informative couple of days I decided I wouldn't be selfish and will be posting a series of blogs on the habits to follow over the next few weeks.

Covey was a world renowned management guru who wanted to discover what it was that made some people successful and not others. He studied a large number of highly successful people and worked out some of the qualities they had in common. These he called habits which he managed to distil into the fundamental seven he wrote about.

The habits have further been divided into two sections. Habits 1-3 are known as the personal victory habits. They are qualities or traits we have to find within ourselves. Habits 4-6 are public victory habits which concern the interactions we have with others and how we work together to achieve the best results.

To summarise, the habits are

Habit 1 - Be proactive

Habit 2 - Start with the end in mind

Habit 3 - First things first

Habit 4 - Think win win

Habit 5 - Seek first to understand, then be understood

Habit 6 - Synergise

Habit 7 - Sharpen the saw

Caroline Love

www.stepoffyourstilettos.co.uk 

Do you need help to use your time more effectively and productively? Have you ever tried coaching? Would you like to?

The wonders of technology mean it doesn't matter where you live.

Contact me to arrange a free consultation about my coaching services. My step by step programme will help you get more from your allotted hours and give you time to do the things you want to do as well as the things you have to do. Send me a message or email Caroline@carolinelove.co.uk 

Six ways to think positively

image courtesy of freedigitalimages.net

Life feels brighter if you have a sunny and positive outlook. Negativity in both yourself and others can drag you down and sap the energy out of you making you feel like a wrung out rag. Thinking positively is a constructive outlook to have and you'll find that life becomes all the sweeter

Here are some tried and tested ways to get yourself into a positive mindset and make life feel easier.

1. Write 5 positive things about yourself everyday.  Whether you write in a journal, post it notes or somewhere else. Take a few minutes to remind yourself about the good things you do, say or are. After only a week you'll have a list of 35 and by the end of the month you'll really see the positivity adding up.  Take time to go through them periodically especially if you're having a bit of a down day.  Try and set yourself a particular time of day to write so it becomes a habit.

2. Develop goals for yourself to achieve and go for it!  Achieving goals is rewarding in itself. The sense of having reached a target or goal you set yourself really increases the power within and give you the impetus to set more and therefore achieve more.  Make sure they are your own goals not someone else's.

3. Don’t let a setback set you back. It is easy to become disheartened when your plan doesn't seem to be coming together.  Even the highest of achievers have had setbacks along the way. The trick is to keep on going one step at a time. Every little step you take is a step closer to your goals and proof to yourself that you are capable of success.

4. Remember that thinking positively is a choice you can make. Make a decision to stop thinking negatively, by reflecting on your thoughts and feelings thing thinking how you could actively turn those negative thoughts into positive ones.

5. Go on a thinking negatively diet. Actively look at the thoughts you have and try and reduce the negative ones and increase the positive. Remember if you seem to be having quite a few negative thoughts you can change them. If you were on a diet and lapsed by eating a bar of chocolate it would be a mistake, not the end of the world. Try and draw this analogy with negative and positive thinking.

6. Make a conscious effort to smile more. It will lift your whole mood and other people will react positively to that in return.

Caroline Love

www.stepoffyourstilettos.co.uk 

Do you need help to use your time more effectively and productively? Have you ever tried coaching? Would you like to?

The wonders of technology mean it doesn't matter where you live.

Contact me to arrange a free consultation about my coaching services. My step by step programme will help you get more from your allotted hours and give you time to do the things you want to do as well as the things you have to do. Send me a message or email Caroline@carolinelove.co.uk