Brilliant Company to work with - make sure you love your work - IMPORTANT MESSAGE

Bodies Under Construction (the clinic I work from) is in the festive mood AND our amazing director, Leslie Abrahams and his wife Teryl, sent me a naughty box of Bad Brownies (and I've even been good) 😂😃 THANK YOU!!! You have made my day brighter, happier and joyful.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE - loving your work and who you work for is so important to your mental and physical wellbeing. Remember, you spend a lot of your day doing your job and if it's not right for you anymore - leave. If you hate your workplace but like your work - find a new company. If your chosen career isn't what you thought it was going to be like - start retraining (it doesn't matter how much time or money you have spent on it - ask yourself if you really want to be investing any more of your lifetime doing it). A quality life is more important in the long run.  

Do not be afraid of change. Do not be afraid of mistakes. Both are wonderful if they help lead you to your happiness and a fulfilling life. You, and those who are close to you, will benefit.

DO A LIFE WHEEL! See mine below

New LIFE WHEEL Goals for next 4 months

Normally I advise my clients to choose 4 areas of their life that they want to focus on for the next 4 – 6 months.  Then they need to write down the goals and the steps they need to take to achieve them.

So last time I did my life wheel (back in April) – I so badly wanted to get back in shape and take care of my health that I made that my sole goal.  So my steps were a whole body life wheel focus for the next 4 months.   My steps were:

-       Exercise daily – yoga or walking (looking into other possible classes)

-       Start running again – devise a plan to build back up distance

-       Floss my teeth daily (had just lost a filling prior to setting goals)

-       No alcohol until I reached my ideal weight.

-       Back to portion control and eating health meals (no takeaways, ready meals, etc).   I made my meals separately if family members wanted something else but tried to work some of their meals into mine.  They started to put more of my salads into their meals as well – Bonus!

-       Cut out (down) sugar (really hard as it is in everything) – this was actually motivated by reading someone else’s blog about the affects it had on his health.

-       Drink herbal teas (no coffee – as prone to wanting sugar or Starbucks).

I loved my plan and I have enjoyed making it happen (see prior weekly detox blogs/FB entry for more details) .  So, now onto the next challenge.

As I started with a total focus on health for the last life wheel goal, this time I am going the extreme with setting 6 – yes 6 areas I want to work on but 2 are very short term achievable.  Four areas will take 4 – 6 months to complete and 2 just need a power hour to get in place, but they are still important to me to get done.

I will first list my goals and over the next few days break them down into steps.

1.     Kitchen Extension

2.     Career challenges

3.     Personal Development (Piano I think)

4.     Weekend family activity (exercise or language – still thinking)

5.     Relationship with partner – plan longer term life goals together.

6.     Spiritual space – more clutter clear out.

Look forward to sharing more with you.  If you want to do a life wheel message me or add to a comment to FB and I will email it over to you.

Stick with your goals

It is so tempting to say "I give up" when starting a New Years resolution, and it is usually at week 3 of January that people stop their efforts.

The best thing you can do is get a calendar print out and write how many days you have been successful at it and tell yourself "well done" each time you do it.  You will begin to look forward to writing in the next number and enjoy that feeling of success.

It is also good to tell people what your goals are so you get support in your efforts.  Once you commit it out loud to others it is hard to give up.  Our pride keeps us going forward.

AND as always, write down your goals and the plan of action.  It is easier when we have specific and clear idea on how we will achieve our goals.

Happy New Year!

How to get your motivation back

Sometimes we get stuck and can't seem to get started again. We lose motivation and keep putting things off, and at the same time, feeling guilty for not taking action. So follow these steps to get yourself started again (and I promise it will only take 30 minutes max):

• Write down your values and what is important to you and why
• Next, do a life wheel and choose the bottom 3 or 4 areas you want or need to work on
• Then take a diary and plan in how you are going to get those goals accomplished. For example, if your personal space is a mess, book in days and times to clear it out; this could take 2 hours or 2 days. If it’s health, book in the days you will exercise and what else can do (eat healthier, cut down on alcohol, sign up for a charity walk)

The wheel of life

Finding balance in your life

When life is busy, or all your energy is focused on a special project, it's all too easy to find yourself "off balance", not paying enough attention to important areas of your life. While you need to have drive and focus if you're going to get things done, taking this too far can lead to frustration and intense stress. That's when it's time to take a "helicopter view" of your life, so that you can bring things back into balance.

This is where the Wheel of Life (or Life Wheel) can help.  It helps you consider each area of your life in turn and assess what's off balance. And so, it helps you identify areas that need more attention.

The Wheel of Life is powerful because it gives you a vivid visual representation of the way your life is currently, compared with the way you'd ideally like it to be. It is called the "Wheel of Life" because each area of your life is mapped on a circle, like the spoke of a wheel (career, health, relationship, personal space, finances, social life, fun, spiritual, etc...).

1. Start by brainstorming the 6 to 8 dimensions of your life that are important for you. Different approaches to this are:
   The roles you play in life: husband/wife, father/mother, manager, colleague, team member, sports player, community leader, or friend.
   Areas of life that are important to you: artistic expression, positive attitude, career, education, family, friends, financial freedom, physical challenge, pleasure, or public service.
   Your own combination of these (or different) things: reflecting the things that are your priorities in life.
2. Write down these dimensions down on the Wheel of Life diagram, one on each spoke of the life wheel. 
3. This approach assumes that you will be happy and fulfilled if you can find the right balance of attention for each of these dimensions. And different areas of your life will need different levels of attention at different times. So the next step is to assess the amount of attention you're currently devoting to each area.
4. Consider each dimension in turn, and on a scale of 0 (low) to 5 (high), write down the amount of attention you're devoting to that area of your life. Mark each score on the appropriate spoke of you Life Wheel.
5. Now join up the marks around the circle. Does you life wheel looked and feel balanced? 
6. Next it's time to consider your ideal level in each area of your life. A balanced life does not mean getting 5 in each life area: some areas need more attention and focus than others at any time. And inevitably you will need to make choices and compromises, as your time and energy are not in unlimited supply! 
7. So the question is, what would the ideal level of attention be for you each life area?
8. Plot the "ideal" scores around your life wheel too.
9. Now you have a visual representation of your current life balance and your ideal life balance. What are the gaps? These are the areas of your life that need attention. 
10. And remember that gaps can go both ways. There are almost certainly areas that are not getting as much attention as you'd like. However there may also be areas where you're putting in more effort than you'd ideally like. These areas are sapping energy and enthusiasm that may better be directed elsewhere.
11. Once you have identified the areas that need attention, it's time to plan the actions needed to work on regaining balance. Starting with the neglected areas, what things do you need to start doing to regain balance? In the areas that currently sap your energy and time, what can you STOP doing or re-prioritise or delegate to someone else? Make a commitment to these actions by writing them down. 

Tip:

You can use the Wheel of Life as preparation for goal setting or coaching. It helps identified the area you want to work on and is a great way of visualizing your current and desired life. Once you are working on improving your life balance, it's also a useful tool for monitoring your life balance as it changes over time.

The Wheel of Life is a great tool to help you improve your life balance. It helps you quickly and graphically identify the areas in your life to which you want to devote more energy, and helps you understand where you might want to cut back.

The challenge now is to transform this knowledge and desire for a more balanced life into a positive program of action.