Diary 4 Life

When is the time right? Is right now, this minute? In a few more minutes maybe, or has the right time already passed by? How will you know when the right time is? Perhaps you’ll get a letter; maybe a text message or an email. Okay, enough of this beating about the bush

What’s only skin deep; why beauty of course or so I’m led to believe. To be quite honest, I do firmly believe it too! That is the external beauty, however true beauty is deep within the spirit and carries much more value.

“A place for everything and everything in it’s place” is a phrase I first heard in the late 90s, I had been contracted to help an organisation design and develop a staff development programme for their workforce. The phrase was one they had adopted as a way of encouraging people to keep their workplace clean and tidy.

Goal setting is something I’ve written about on more than one occasion on this blog; something that is flavour of the month at the moment and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. So there we have, goal setting, so you either work with it or kick it into touch without so much as a second thought.

Are you sick of the G word yet? I know I am. And I did not have any specific New Year’s Resolutions for 2010 either, because I already had many goals even before 2009 ended. Can’t do no more…

When I first went into business in 2003 and I had to decide how much I was going to charge; an hourly rate or a day rate and how much. These were just a few of the questions I had to ask myself. I had no idea how much I had to charge; I had never done this before.

If you have a bit of a sweet tooth, you may be a lover of Rocky Road crunch bars. They are a tasty chocolate bar and a favourite of the sweet tooth gang. Whilst I wouldn’t say I have a sweet tooth, I am partial to the odd cake or chocolate sweet. I am also very fortunate because I have a partner who’s a very good cook and loves baking for the family.

When you’re communicating with others, are you aware of how your message is being taken or its level of understanding? History is littered with examples of where poorly communicated messages have been mis-interpreted; resulting in the outcome not being met.

How grateful are you for the things you have in your life? Out of interest, what are the things you show gratitude for? Maybe it’s your 4/5 bedroom detached house, your 4×4 car, the latest 10% pay rise you’ve received, your wardrobe full of the latest designer clothes, the two holidays you are able to take each year.

You’ll hear a great deal about forgiveness as you progress through your day; whether at work or home it doesn’t really matter, you have to deal with forgiveness situations. How much consideration do you give to the meaning of forgiveness? What it really means, to both forgive and receive forgiveness?

As you go about your day you’ll hear the word love used in a number of different situations and settings. The word is used so freely and so often it is easy to lose the full meaning behind it and the intent it carries. I love you! When somebody says; “I love you” to you, what does it mean? How does it make you feel?

Do you know someone who thinks that any opportunity is generally never good enough for them? Are you constantly saying to yourself “I’m not doing that!” when confronted with a potential opportunity that could open up some doors for you?

Whilst the definition of self esteem varies a great deal from source to source, the general consensus is that it is a self estimation of your own worth; how you see yourself and fit into the bigger picture. Self esteem is a very powerful thing and can be the root cause of your success or failure;

The word achievement or any of it’s derivatives are freely banded about a great deal by people wishing to impress, advertise their results or maybe just for their own self gratification. Achievement falls into one the those trendy words categories, that people love to use; in management meetings, at social meetings with their friends or any where they can raise their profile to impress people.

This post is the second of two about helping your learning. You can read the first one; “10 steps to help your learning”. When you’ve read this post don’t forget to add your views in the comments section below, I’m always pleased to hear your views. Your learning has recently moved more into your control and is likely to remain there for the foreseeable future.

The importance of continuing your learning, beyond any formal training, has been highlighted numerous times on this blog. So it comes as no surprise that I feel the need to write about it again; this time I have put together a suggested list of 10 steps to help your learning. This is the first of two posts; watch out for the second one, coming soon.

Integrity is something, I’m always interested in talking about, writing about or discussing. So it came as no surprise to me when I felt the urge to write a blog about the subject. I’ve heard a number of people speak on the subject; more recently I’ve been asked questions about it from blog readers, what my thoughts were on integrity.

On this blog, I have written a number of times about how continuing your learning, is an important ingredient in the recipe of your personal development training. I have recently been ‘walking my talk’ and I’ve completed an online blog optimisation course.

We are all guilty of procrastinating at some stage in our attempts to achieve our goals. In his book “Eat that frog”, Brian Tracy uses an old metaphor to help people overcome their procrastination. The metaphor says, if the first thing you do in the morning is to eat a live frog, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that it’s probably the worst thing you’ll do all day.

Just how aware or self aware are you? How clear are you with what you are doing? How clear are you about what’s going on around you? I don’t mean the simple straightforward things that happen on a daily basis; such as now I’m having my breakfast, then I’ll catch the bus to work. They’re the easy things to be aware of.