Begin with the end in mind

This is one of the many valuable suggestions leading American coach Stephen Covey mentions in his best seller: " The 7 Habits of Highly Effective people" . Continuing on my mission here to raise your awareness of the importance of being aware of what legacy we are leaving behind knowing that all of us have a unique purpose, mission in life which gives direction and meaning to our life. That we need to detect it and it is through living it that we feel fulfilment and happiness. We have covered so far why it is important and started defining our roles and our core values, but today I wanted to mention this exercise which is maybe faster to do and will help point you in the right direction. Sit somewhere quiet where you will be undisturbed, with your notebook and pen ready to capture your thoughts and relax... Imagine yourself quietly entering a church, you walk gently down the aisle noticing many people you know in the aisles alongside. The atmosphere is subdued and peaceful. Maybe the organ is playing and rays of sun are filtering through the painted glass of the church windows. You see a casket on the alter surrounded by flowers and gently approach it... And yes, it is you lying there peacefully at the end of your life. Once you have recovered from the shock, you sit to the side and listen to the service. Three people take turns to talk about you and the impact you had on their lives and on the lives of others: a family member, a friend and maybe someone you worked with if relevant. What do they say about you? What was your mark on the world? Is it what you would want them to say? I had quite a revelation when I did that and one of my sons stood up to talk. He somehow mentionned some of the things I would have wanted him to: That I was funny and had loads of ideas and encouraged and motivated them but he also said I pushed a lot and could get quite bad tempered when they didn't fulfil my expectations, that it was hard living up to my standard of always doing your best, that I was always very busy rushing about doing hundreds of things at the same time and didn't make time to really listen to what they were saying....and I knew this was true. The advantage of this formula is you can work on it immediately and start living the life you want to have lived and having the impact you want to have on others RIGHT NOW. So let's make it happen!

Core values: what do you need to be happy?

Our values are our guiding principles and they measure the meaning that life holds for us. They are like a compass ensuring we stay on purpose, the purpose that we have detected as we move through the various paths of life.

Our goals, dreams and desires are merely the vehicle for fulfilling our values.” What we do depends on what we feel about what we know” . So to come back to our life destination, values are the compass by which you direct your life. Identifying and clarifying them helps us make decisions and ensure that we don’t drift through life but live on purpose. Thomas Mennard said: “ Needs drive us, values guide us”.

So what is important to you? With my clients we start basically brainstorming, letting all ideas out before making sense and categorizing. I prefer not providing a shopping list as we then tend to choose ones we think we should have or that others think we should have, but prefer detecting our values from our life. There are various questions you can ask yourself:

- Peak moment in time: when was a time you felt particularly happy? A time when just everything seemed right? Who was there? What was happening?
- Suppressed values: what makes you really angry? Then flip it over and find the values which are being suppressed.
- Must haves: sometimes some values are particularly clear to us and we know if we dont have them in our lives, a part of us just withers away.
- Obsessive expression: what do your friends make fun of you about? Often these things reflect a value which is particularly important to you
- What do you do really well? We often do really well at the things which come naturally to us.
- What do you enjoy sharing? Same thing really, the things we enjoy sharing are often the things closer to our heart.

Once you have a list, a pattern will start to emerge, hence the importance of writing them down. Do not worry too much about the precise wording. You can start by stringing a few words which represent to you more or less the same value together and group them under headings.

You need however to keep drilling to make sure they are actually values and not what we call " means values". What does X bring me? Money for example is not a value but a means value, when asked: what does money bring you, the question will deliver the value: security, recognition…

Group, compare, prioritise, until you get to 8 core values: the names or categories only need to make sense to you.

By now you should start to feel parts of you coming together and a mounting excitement at the clarity it brings.
This is usually not a 5 minute process. It can take days and months to fully feel you have the essence of what is important to you. The important thing is to launch the process and be ready to capture what emerges over the days, just let it come and flow.
It is a wonderfully grounding experience to be able to crystallise your personal happiness into eight or so words.

Good luck! Just let them come and next week I will explain another exercise to help you detect your personal recipe for happiness: beginning with the end in mind.

Let's make it happen!

Defining where you are going

Oopps, I did it again and disappeared for a while! We went on a wonderful 4 week road trip through Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark! It was wonderful, the children were fantastic: we visited a lot, learnt and grew a lot and bonded as a family, so a truly fulfilling holiday and I kept a daily blog there too so was not completely idle!!

But back to coaching and self-development!
I read a fantastic book called "Core Transformation" by Conninrae and Tamara Andreas about reaching the well spring within which I hope to present to you soon.

But back to where I had left you: compiling a list of the life roles and responsabilities you hold and listing what is important to you about them.
This is part of a three question workshop which I use with my clients to define their life purpose. What is the purpose of your life?

In Viktor Frankl's book: " Man's search for meaning" which is an absolute MUST READ, a gem of a book, he explains why he his convinced that the primary human drive is not pleasure but the pursuit of what we find meaningful.

Once we know what we find meaningful we can use this to steer us in our lives otherwise we run the risk of drifting by try and error and looking back to a life full of regrets.
This does not however mean that we live a life of rigidity, blind to the many opportunities thrown our way. It means that we are aware of the direction we would like our life to go, the direction which gives meaning to our life though we may take many varied paths to get there.

This meaning, this purpose can also be defined as our legacy. What do we want to be remembered for?
S. Covey in his inspiring book: " First Things First" talks about us being fulfilled by a life that responds to 4 human needs:
- the need to live which is then physical needs (Shelter, food, health...)
- the need to love (friends, family, and to be loved), this is the social need
- the need to learn which is the mental need (self development) and
- the need to leave a legacy which is the spiritual one, meaning, purpose, vision.

In his view the need to leave a legacy is the " key to the fire within, which transforms other needs into capacities for contribution."

So that is where we are starting. One way I go about helping my clients detect their purpose (as Frankl says: " we detect our purpose, we do not invent it")is through the three steps we started last time. The first being to define goals and responsabilities and next week we move on to defining our Core Values.

What are the ingredients you need in your life to be happy?

Let's make it happen!!!

What matters most to you?

First of all, to those of you following me regularly: a big sorry for the long absence, it was a question of "First things first" and new clients, presentations, my NLP Practitioner written integration document and of course children end of year program just needed priority! Not in that order mind you!
But I have missed my blog and am eager to share my motivation for getting our lives in order so we can live them to the full.

So...Do YOU know what matters most for you to feel happy and complete? What are the vital ingredients you need in your life to feel fulfilled?
The thing is, we are usually quite fuzzy on what those ingredients actually are but if we don't know what these are: how can we be doing our best to live a happy, contented, fulfilled life?

Values basically measure the meaning that life holds for us and our goals, dreams , desires are simply the vehicule for fulfilling our values.So this is pretty important, dont you think?
We have core values which are really at the heart of who we are and from those we also have relationship values, education values, work values...etc Knowing these helps us make the rtight decisions in all areas of our life.

In order to work on finding these vital ingredients I quite like the "What matters most" process defined by Hyrum W. Smith.
Lets us look at the first step:

Get hold of your notebook and start making a list of the roles, responsabilities and relationships you have in your life. We can start from the very large picture: as in we are all members of the human race, of a family...etc but then whittle it down to you: maybe you are a Mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife, an employee, a friend, a helper at the library...etc
Once you have them listed, prioritise them to the ones which are the most important to you, bringing the list down to the main seven and rank these seven by importance.
What things seem the most important from the life roles you have identified?

I shall let you ponder on these, hoping you note it all down and next week we will continue with identifying your governing values!

let's make it happen and live a fulfilled life, full of purpose and meaning, knowing we are moving forward to being our personal best!

How whole do you feel?

Hello dear fellow bloggers,

Sorry for the delay between postings, life is running away with me at the moment!

Today I wanted to talk about parts, and feeling whole. I knew of course the feeling of expressions " a part of me felt like this", or "I don't know what came over me"...etc but it is only when I did the NLP practitioner course that I discovered the concept more in depth. It really resonnates with me.

In brief, the idea is that we start off whole and if, mostly when we are young, we have an experience which is too overwhelming, our psychological immune system protects us from pain by breaking that part off and isolating it within our unconscious. Now this does not have to be a tragic trauma. It can just be a particular feeling of rejection as a young child for example. So then try and imagine that wound as a dot which will then over the years gather around it circle after growing circle of protective layers to isolate it as we develop different ways of coping through the ages. Maybe you first reverted to a teddy, then to a friend, then to keeping busy all the time or later for example using alcohol (in extreme cases). This part, that we are not usually aware of, manifests itself in an incongruence in our behaviour, feelings of tension as if there is a battle going on amongst different parts in us. Maybe one urging us forward to enjoy life and take risks, and the other blocking all we do to prevent us from getting hurt again. These parts can grow to develop their own values and belief system and can appear to have " a mind of their own". It takes a huge amount of energy to maintain these different parts.
These parts however all have a positive intention. They were all created to protect us from pain. The problem is that their purpose and intention often clashes with how they function and the behaviour they induce. Hence feelings of tension, frustration, of being torn and not being whole.
And we miss that wholeness. That powerful yet serene feeling of groundedness when we feel aligned with ourselves, at peace.
In NLP there is a wonderful tool called "Parts Integration", at the same time very simple, but deep and incredibly powerful. My analytical mind was pretty sceptical when I first read about it but I was blown away when during our training it was done on me and yesterday I used it with a client over the phone (which I was then amazed at but thought worth a try)and he was amazed at the results even though he is a very down to earth, anaytical person.

The most important part is for just a moment, suspending disbelief, relaxing and just feeling free to talk. There is no being hypnotised or being in a deep transe. You just relax and guided by the practitioner let the two parts come out on different hands and we talk with them, describing them, identifying their purpose and basically chunking up until we have identified a joint purpose, the initial wholeness. Sometimes there is an exchange of qualities and ressources between the two parts and a gradual feeling of coming together which in most cases manifests itself through the hands coming together.
My client yesterday described a strong feeling of magnetic attraction between his hands as they moved together as if of their own accord. Some then seem to instinctively bring their joint hands up to their heart or chest to feel even deeply the sense of integration, of coming together. That feeling of peace as the two parts join forces for the common goal, an increase in energy yet a deep, deep peace.
I would recommend it to everyone. It is simple, pain free, no need to revisit any painful memories, it just feels natural and profoundly transformational.
Here is to coming together!

What love language do you speak?

Now this is a very interesting concept which I found in a book called " The five love languages" by Gary Chapman. Someone mentionned it and I must admit at first to have not been particularly interested in reading it until she said it had probably saved her mariage! So I suspended my disbelief and sure enough, this really makes sense!
The concept is that just as we have different ways of viewing the world, what happens to us...etc, we also have different ways of expressing our love. Just as any language, the important thing in communication is actually being understood. So are you and your partner speaking the same love language or talking at cross purposes? Maybe worth investigating! It certainly was an eye openener for my husband and I!
Mr Chapman mentions 5 basic Love languages (how we express our love).
1. Words of affirmation
(Thanks, encouragement, kind words, humble requests,actually saying: I love you)
2. Quality time:
(undivided attention, listening, talking about feelings, shared quality activities)
3. Receiving gifts:
(Gifts as investment, gift of self)
4. Acts of service:
(Doing things: cooking, cleaning, emptying dish washer)
5. Physical touch
(Which is not limited to sex but a hug, a kiss, a pat, holding hands...etc)

So for example my husband would say: "But of course I love you: I bring you flowers". I would appreciate the flowers yet not see those as meaning he particularly loved me. However if he emptied the dish washer without me asking him I would feel he really did love me. Once we became aware we were speaking different languages and once I had understood that though he appreciated all the acts of service I do,he felt loved if I hugged him or held hands then I could express my love in a way which made him feel loved. And that is the whole point isnt it?
Maybe worth working out first for yourself what makes you feel loved and then ask your partner!
Lots of little misunderstandings (or sometimes not so little)can be cleared in this way enabling us to have clear and strong relationships where we feel understood and can give freely in return!

Let's make it happen!

Body and mind spring clean: make room for the new!

I dont know about you in your various parts of the world but spring is definitely on the way here! The sun is shining, the flowers are blossoming, the buds are showing and there is that exciting renewal feeling in the air!
The windows stay open, we linger to chat to the neighbours, take stock of what needs doing in the garden and generally feel energised,hopeful and ready to emerge from hibernation.
Hence spring clean where we de-clutter our house, wash the windows, re-acquaint ourselves with the garden and generally feel in a change mode.
This is also the time when we emerge from our huge jumpers and layers of clothes to often realise that hidden under there are other extra layers which were nice and comforting in the cold but less so with the prospect of lighter clothing.
This is the right time for the body spring clean: the better eating habits, more fresh produce, salads and fruit. More sports or walks so that body can bloosom too.

Now what about the inner spring clean? This is a time of renewal. What unhelpful behaviours or attitudes do you have? Which one change would make the most difference to your levels of happiness, satisfaction, pride in yourself? Maybe during the long dark days of winter you made a list of New year resolutions. How far did you get? NOW IS THE TIME FOR ACTION.

Let's play a game! Don't think too much, just play along!

So choose one specific behaviour you want to have.

1. Select someone either real or imagined who already has that positive behaviour you want. You are now a movie director so play in your mind a film where your chosen character is displaying this behaviour. Really go into the details, see how they look, how they act, what they are doing. Hear what they are saying. Take your time tp picture it vividly in your mind's eye.

2. Now substitute the model for yourself. Actively see yourself doing what your model was doing, look at all the details. Hear your voice. Are there any circumstances when this behaviour may not be appropriate? If not, maybe make the picture a little brighter. Notice how it changes your life and those around you.
Keep modifying the film till it is precisely as you would want it.

3. Now step into your image in the film and see it through your own eyes. Feel what it feels like to have this behaviour and see its effect around you. Build it up, hear your voice and other voices around you. Feel the changes in yourself, watch what is happening around you as you display this new, positive behaviour. What new things are you telling yourself? How differently does your future look? How differently do you look at your past? What new and wonderful things do you have?

4. When would be a good time for you to use this new behaviour in the futur? What will you see, hear and feel as you use it?

5. Now pick another situation when this new behaviour will be useful. Play it in your mind. What are you seeing? What are you feeling? What are you saying to yourself and what are others saying?Enjoy it!

Well done! Now you know you can do it, you have seen yourself, you have felt how good it was and heard what others were saying. So what is stopping you? Go do it!!!!

I based most of this on one of the New Behaviour Generator sections from my NLP course with Noble Manhattan Coaching Ltd, with trainer Aina Egberg.

Let's make it happen!!!