The link between gratitude and success

setting boundaries

changing the inner dialogue

Success Vs the inner saboteur

Is it really possible to not bring our personal stories with us to work? Everyone has personal struggles outside of our working environment, that impacts the way each of us behave and perform at work. Employee development needs to take into account the personal struggles and beliefs people hold. If it does not, how does anyone expect to get the most out of them self or their team.

How are you, as a business or team leader meant to get the best for and of your team if you don't even have a faint understanding of the things that hinder them or you? 

Here are two examples of how our "stories" get in the way of success:

Amanda is a 55 year old woman who set up her business in her early 30's. Born in the 60's, she witnessed and experienced all of the things women had to endure in terms of discrimination and inequality. There have been major advances since then to address inequalities and discrimination, yet while the legislation may have changed. For Amanda it was still difficult to establish herself as a serious player in her field, so she felt she had to take on the characteristics of her alpha male counterparts for fear of failing and not been taken seriously. Amanda carries a resentment towards her father from her early childhood, does not have a good relationship with her husband, her children have left to university and she is so afraid of losing. In her fear she has begun to express herself in a way that isn't how she wishes to come across, the people who work for her see her as "the dragon", who is unreasonable and unapproachable.  

Amanda is carrying her baggage with her and sabotaging the very business that she fought so hard to create in the first place. Amanda needs to find a way of addressing all the baggage and refocus on her main goals and drivers for starting her business in the first place and if they are no longer relevant, then she needs to find new drivers to motivate her and keep her connected. Assuming she still wants her business to do well. 

Adam is a young 25 year old lad who is really hungry to make his mark, he doesn't like to take direction from anyone and has been disrespectful to his team leader. Adam grew up in a middle class very academic household and didn't acheive the grades that were expected of him, nor did he choose a career that his parents would have deemed pride worthy. He feels their disappointment and is angry, he feels he is not good enough so acts out with his colleagues. He needs help with separating all "authority" figures, from that of his parents and to work out his personal goals. It would be good for Adam to experience how he might be coming across to other people, as he acts out, and how this might be keeping him stuck with the label of bratty child. 

 The question is whats stopping you from working through and parking your own "stuff"?

Get a coach who will focus on helping you with your career and help address the personal "stuff".  When I work with clients I help them look at those personal issues from different perspectives, and they find new ways of addressing those deep rooted issues. Work "stuff" then becomes significantly easier. And create the success that they want. Once you know how your inner saboteur acts out, you can learn to stop being your own worst enemy.

Why communicate with compassion?

The gift of success

Each of us view and define success very differently. For those of you who, like me see success as achieving goals, then this is the post for you.  To me success equates to hitting my goals, also feeling of content and having abundance in my life to share.

Set goals: I always knew I wanted to be a published author and some day work for myself. I had no idea at the time I had this as a goal, what I was going to write about or what I was going to do or for that matter how I was going to get there. I just knew that is what I wanted.

As I went along through my experiences and somewhat fumbled through life, there was more clarity. I was going to help people in business learn how to speak to one another, by helping them connect with their compassion and change the way they think. To help create a working environment that encouraged collaboration and co-creation. I was going to help other people be successful while on my own journey of success. And so my goal was clear.

Fail to plan, plan to fail: It was 6 years ago that my vision and mission were finally clear. And since then I have been working through a road map I had set myself, of what I was going to do and by when. I had planned and researched which courses I needed to do, the cost of each one and when was I going to do them. These would then give me the skills of how to help people. 

I still needed to make money to pay for all these things, pay the mortgage, pay for a wedding. You know, general life things that happen along the way, the life events that enrich the road map of places you have detoured to visit. Some people are a bit less distracted by the "tourist attractions signs" that cause detours, than me. I just extended my time line to achieve and fit in new mini goals and adventures along the way. The fact is that regardless of the time it takes you to achieve your goal. you have to have a plan of action. its no good just one day waking up and quitting your job, just because you suddenly want to start your own business. There are practicalities of life that have to be taken into consideration, so put a plan together, do the necessary research and look at your finances.

Make it happen: They say the best athletes rehearse, plan and visualise their win. Just because you are good at visualisation and know what you want to achieve, if you never move into action i.e. do the actual work... then all of the energy you spent on clarifying the goal and creating your plan, would have been nothing more than one big day dream. And a total waste of time. 

No one said it was easy to keep going and it's OK to slip up now and again. To have a couple of days or even weeks, where you might procrastinate and not get much or anything done. Think of it like when someone goes on a diet, if they have been eating healthy for a month and then one day they feel like a massive meal of fish and chips, followed by a huge slice of chocolate cake and ice cream. Should they just then say, "f$%k it" to the diet and eat badly from here on out because they will never have the body of their dreams, so whats the point? Hell no! Your goals are the same, just because you slip up or other things get in the way, doesn't mean you stop working towards making them a reality. Your goal might be to get the most incredible body, but if you never work towards it it's never going to happen. If you have too many fish and chip days then it will just take you longer and may be twice as hard to get there, but it doesn't mean you won't. If you never do anything to get what you want, then you will never find out if you could or not. 

We can be our own worst enemies when it comes to getting what we want in life. Our stories, our inner child...all the baggage just gets in the way. before you start on your journey remember pack light so you can go further. The more baggage we refuse to let go of the slower our walk will be.