Our Deepest Fear

Our Deepest fear by Marianne Williamson in A Return to Love

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us
We ask ourselves “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous”
Actually, who are we not to be ?
You are a child of God,
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure
around you
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone !
And as we let our light shine
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

It's YOUR fault

Yes YOUR fault - Your fault we had a financial crisis, your fault that the UK ran out of fuel at the pump this week, your fault many of our children are over weight and yes your fault that many adults are equally unhealthy. It's certainly not the fault of just one banker, one politician or one food manufacturer.

Yes I know it's my fault too - but isn't that the problem so long as we use words that either take collective responsibility or put blame on one person we have a get out? It's no longer something we have to do anything about because someone else is responsible. Don't believe me..... just read the next paragraph and compare it with the first.

Yes OUR fault - our fault we had a financial crisis, our fault that the UK ran out of fuel at the pump this week, our fault many of our children are over weight and yes our fault that many adults are equally unhealthy.

Which paragraph has you even considering you might be to blame or be able to do something to change it?

Two news items today illustrate expects of this:

Earth Hour: Today many monuments and cities will be turning off their power to encourage us all to rethink our energy consumption. How many of us however will applaud those monuments and believe that they've done it on our behalf. In reality they're trying to inspire us to take action.

Neutrino Scientist quits: Putting our head above the parapet, however many provisos we include in our statements, can seem very risky.

Forth coming blogs will consider further aspects of this lack of responsibility we all seem to take and look at how we make decisions - because those living on credit, filling jam jars with petrol, joining the mile long queues at petrol stations and eating those cakes all have made a decision to do so.

And remember it's always others who do these things and not us! (That's certainly what we all believe - if our actions and words are anything to go on)

Alison

Alison Smith
Helping Procurement teams take responsibility
alison@alisonsmith.eu 07770 538159

Wellbeing Champions

Earlier this week I tweeted that 'it's in all the ways we can't see that we make the biggest difference'.

Is our quest for wellbeing any different. Whilst we can educate, inform, blog and even provide policies that support wellbeing, is it enough to inspire others to be motivated to make the necessary changes? For me it’s all the small things we do and are seen to do that provide the inspiration. As I was reminded before Christmas when someone sent me a note to say ‘you inspire me to live more healthily’. I know this comes from how I am in the world and in all the small things I tweet/blog/chat and share photo's about (as above) rather than the work I get paid to do.

In any organisation, therefore, the key is identifying those individuals who influence others behaviours and ensuring they are seen to be demonstrating the behaviours that support wellbeing. Many organisations won’t stand a cat in hells chance of having wellbeing if those with the most influence ignore and override the signs of stress, have no life balance, don’t take their holiday’s, skip lunch, live on adrenaline and coffee when adrenaline is lacking and/or are known to consume a week’s allowance of alcohol every Friday night?

Who are your wellbeing champions – and how can you ensure they are able to express how they achieve wellbeing rather than hide it?

Alison

Alison Smith
Helping procurement teams find balance and wellbeing and keep on track

TRUST in the Toolkit for 2012

Yesterday I added Excellence into the toolkit for 2012 based on Cirque Du Soleil's way of being in everything that they do. Today I'd like to put TRUST into the toolkit.

It's obvious in the picture above and this wonderful video, both from Cirque Du Soleil, that the performers are required to put 100% trust in their colleagues - both those on and off stage.

Having just finished my own personal training session I realise that they also have to trust themselves. My personal trainer has just added another 5kg to my weights and I was certainly doubting my ability to do the exercise. The negative chatter started as I told myself:

I can't do this

I'll drop it

I'll hurt myself

I'll fail

My personal trainer trusted I'd be able to do it. It was just lack of trust in myself that was generating the less than positive thoughts. Which, of course, in turn made what I was doing so much more difficult.

But something changed today, and that's because I didn't grumble to my personal trainer, I didn't give voice to my doubts, I simply told myself I could do it and got on with it. And in so doing realised:

I can do this

I can keep hold of it

I can stay safe

I can and will succeed

How is lack of trust in yourself stopping you achieving your goals and what do you need to stop telling yourself to succeed?

Alison

Alison Smith
Helping you trust yourself and stay on track in 2012
#2012toolkit

Your Toolkit for 2012

In order to achieve our goals in 2012 we will each be drawing daily on our internal resources. These internal resources might include: perseverance, trust, action, communication or laughter etc. The key to success is accessing these resources when they're needed - it's no use perfecting our communication skills when action is required, or taking action when focusing on what direction that action should be in is paramount.

I've noticed however that we often react unconsciously to situations using the most obvious resource or one that we find easy to use. You'll certainly find my answer to many situations is yet more communication :-). The difficulty with that strategy is that it often doesn't work, or makes our goal harder not easier to achieve. It's a bit like using the wrong sized screwdriver - you might make it work but it will take more time and you might ruin the thread of the screw on the way. This year I really do wish every one of us a year to remember for all the right reasons. To assist I'm going to be blogging regularly about the many resources - tools if you will - that we may have in our personal toolkits but may be wary of using. Do feel free to suggest some resources you'd like me to cover. Why not join the discussion on my facebook page where collaboration, loyalty and excellence are some of today's suggestions.

As a start to your toolkit development you may also like these notes from a session I facilitated entitled 'Keeping on Track in a downturn' where the final resource suggested was AUTHENTICITY.

Looking forward to a wonderfully inspiring and delightful 2012
Alison

Alison Smith
Helping procurement teams stay on track in 2012
alison@alisonsmith.eu 07770 538159

The end of your world could be upon you!

The end of your world could be upon you.... and I don't mean 21st December 2012 I mean today, tomorrow or if you're lucky some future date many days from today - but it will come.

Why?

Because none of us know how much longer we will be here - and as hard as that sounds it's a fact.
I'd love to start the year as I normally do with plenty of tips on goal setting and how to keep on track (and I promise they will come). However they will be very much future orientated and some of us many not be here to reap the rewards. That is:

• We eat well or exercise today in order to be healthy tomorrow


• We work hard in order to get some result in the future


• We learn so that we may apply it next week


• and we procrastinate plenty and put things off until another day (or is that just me?)

The picture above is one of the daily photo's I sent a friend from August 26th last year shortly after her prognosis until she went into the hospice late in November before dying peacefully in her sleep on 28th December - 4 months later. Each picture was my invitation to her to remember to:

• Stay in the moment


• Enjoy each day


• Remember she was loved


• Speak from the heart


• Leave nothing unsaid


• Find gratitude in the small things


• Laugh


• Remember and appreciate the good times

That is to believe in tomorrow but live for today.

I'm not suggesting we stop setting goals, exercising or eating healthily. What I am suggesting is we find some time each day to really live for today - because we really don't know how many more of them we may have. I'm sure my friend, and her husband on their holiday abroad in July, were busy imagining a very different Christmas and New Year with their family to the one that enfolded. They had many precious moments between August 26th and December 28th but many of those were because they knew the end of her world was near.

It's easy to act is if it's never going to happen - this blog is a reminder that it will - don't let those small moments pass YOU by.

In loving memory of a friend who will be sadly missed x

Nothing is impossible

This picture defies logic and is a great example that anything is possible if we just take some time and patience to find the solution and explore the opportunities.

With thanks to Responsible fishing UK for Fantastic picture - more stunning photo's of balance can be found on their Facebook page and web site.

Don't speak ill of another

I saw a tweet the other day that said “Don’t speak ill of others – write it in the sand by the water’s edge.” Which I paid attention to for reasons that become clear if you visit the #landscapingyourlife facebook page which the photo above was taken for.

What interested me on Sunday, as I took the picture and posted it on Twitter, was how apt it was for twitter that day. My twitter feed was full of people speaking ill of those that were making the headlines over the weekend.

I was reminded of a video from 1992, which I only recently saw, where a 12 year old reminded us that adults tell children not to do things and then promptly do them all themselves. On twitter and even on other blogs I can see adults doing what they tell children off for doing and that’s ‘calling others names’ or labelling them as this or judging them as that. How can we know these words to be true, what reason is there for doing it and what’s the positive outcome?

My suggestion today is if we wouldn’t let our child say the words about someone at school don’t say them about someone else.

Alison

Alison Smith
Helping teams realise their potential

PS: Authentic Power’s blog yesterday on not judging her mother is another great reminder about the impact we have when we attach judgement to others. Another piece by Julia Hill perhaps more related to the landscape metaphors I mentioned earlier said ”I thought to myself, how in the world do we think we can end the clear-cutting on the planet if we’re so effective at clear-cutting each other”

Well Being

Source: grainedit.com via Karen on Pinterest

6 weeks ago I set you some homeplay for the weekend to notice the impact how you were feeling had on those around you and what you wanted to do that weekend and in life generally.

My invitation to journey with me as I've blogged since has been about not waiting until you've smashed up a shop (of the cup cake or any other variety), or you're signed off with stress or your relationships are falling apart to make the necessary changes.

I certainly didn't want anyone believing the stories they tell themselves about not making the changes - you know the ones - it's my age, I can't, it's too late or even it won't change anything! In short if we don't have the energy to do what we need or want to do every day something has to change! and we can do it! you can do it!

The suggestions on changes to be made are certainly known to us all. Unless I'm unique, I know the challenge is following through on the logic. As I found to my embarrassment today when, having realised I still wasn't eating enough of the right things to sustain what I'm up to on daily basis, my personal trainer decided to abandon the fitness element of my session and go look in the fridge to help me 'see' the healthy options that lay within!!

The changes I've invited you to consider over the 6 weeks have included:

• Mind: Putting yourself first


• Mind: Understanding yourself


• Mind: Changing what your telling yourself


• Body: Reviewing your diet


• Body: Having enough sleep


• Body: Getting your body moving - esp on the days when it's the last thing you want to do


• Heart: Asking for help


• Heart: Letting go of the past


• Spirit: Finding our legacy

I hope something I've said during these blogs has triggered something for you to help you understand what changes you might want to make and/or what changes you may be able to support others in your life with.

Helping purchasing relationships find well being because it starts with the individual.

Alison

Alison Smith
07770 538159 alison@alisonsmith.eu

The final piece of the jigsaw

At the beginning of March I started with a plea:

Please don't allow yourself any excuse for not exploring how to make improvements in your life. And I mean practical things you can do that could dramatically improve your energy, positivity and overall well being and joy for life. Thus allowing you to more easily achieve your goals and live your dreams rather than purely exist.

Recent weeks have seen me blog about the mind, body and heart's relationship to achieving the above. As you will see from this diagram, used by Stephen R Covey in the 8th Habit, there's still one element I've not covered and that's SPIRIT. It's not a topic that's often discussed in business circles and yet for me SPIRIT is the glue that brings it all together. For me spirit is simply finding a bigger meaning and purpose to what you do. Seán Weafer in a recent blog asked the question "what is the meaning of (your) life" and of course it's what ever you want it to be. In his blog Seán asks 10 questions to help you identify what a purposeful life would be for you. One question I often ask clients is "what do you get on your soap box about?" I know Neil Dorwood asks "What's your legacy?"

What ever your answer it's that which will provide the motivation for you to get up on the days when perhaps your mind, body or heart would prefer that you just stayed in bed.

What do you get on your soap box about? and how does what you do every day connect with that?

"You just needed your brain re-tuning"

My final blog this week was always going to be on exercise but I wanted it to be topical rather than just restating what we all hear time and time again about exercise. Which explains why I'm here again so soon after my last blog because I've got my example and blogging it on Friday pretending it had just happened wouldn't have felt right ......

I woke this morning in one of those moods - negative, achy, dizzy and struggling to motivate myself. I'd even managed to convince myself that I might have a cold coming. I wondered about cancelling my personal trainer and taking to my bed. I realised, however, as he is often a better judge of my health than me, and since he's got me to the other side too many times in the past to ignore, that he might help again today.

He arrived and very quickly decided to do something different and cut short the warm up and proceeded to give me my most strenuous session for a long while. Boxing - kick boxing - running!! He repeatedly asked me to push through my resistance and keep going when every muscle (and my head) just wanted to give up. At the end he just pointed out that all I had been thinking before the session was in fact not true and I had just done better than I had for many months "your brain just needed retuning."

There was a lot going on not least the need to push through but please don't under estimate the power of exercise to shift how we're feeling. I know when we're in one of those moods it's hard to find the motivation and that's one reason I have a personal trainer - but there are other means of ensuring we keep on track e.g. I arrange to go to yoga with a friend to keep us both committed etc. For others it's simply finding a more convenient time.

My plea is just ensure you do something because it really can make a difference.

Sleep Scotland - England and Wales too

It was announced yesterday that a teaching pack created by the charity Sleep Scotland is going to be used to help teenagers in Scotland to get enough sleep.

In addition to highlighting the benefits of getting enough sleep they are also going to be advised on the impact of watching TV, using mobiles and computers late at night.

A great example of a simple thing we forget about that can seriously impact our well being. Like all of what I'm sharing this month it's not new. I just hope, like me, you find the occasional reminder useful. If you have all the energy you need and are getting all you want done in life then you're already doing the right things for you. Of course that's the challenge - what works for you might not work for someone else. It's about finding what mix of work, rest and play, and all that encompasses, works best for you.

So today's question is

• Are you getting enough sleep?

That is:

• Do you know how much sleep allows you to operate at your optimum level?



• Do you know what personally impacts your ability to get this much sleep?



• Are you taking appropriate action to make any changes needed?

Seek first to know yourself

Self awareness is the first step in emotional intelligence and it's certainly the first step when wanting to change things when you're not happy with your life. Without self awareness how would you know where to start? How would you know for example:

* The truth of the current situation
* What impact fear is having on the current outcome
* What beliefs you have that may be helping or hindering you
* How your language is impacting how you're feeling
* Whether you need to push a head or pull back
* What you get passionate about
* Whether what you get passionate about is aligned with those around you
* What you're motivated towards (pleasure) or away from (the pain)
* Whether you're better working with others on the changes you want to make, or
* If you're better doing it on your own, and
* Which of mind, body, heart and soul is the best place to start.

Understanding your answers to the questions above will certainly make life easier if you're wanting to make changes.

Alison Smith
Helping Purchasing Relationships become more self aware
This blog is part of a series of blogs on making changes when life is just getting you down. Here's the first in the series I wrote earlier in the month.

You have to put yourself first

People often complain about their lack of energy or concentration, not getting anything done, hating their jobs or about failing relationships at home or work. That is people tell us they're not happy with their life.

The challenge is we can all shout from the roof tops and tell them that they can do something about how they're feeling, that they can improve their relationships or can achieve more. But the crux is it requires doing something different and even more it requires them to make their life a priority.

If a friend or colleague was not happy with their life what would you do? I bet you'd spend your time trying to get them back on track, to make them smile, to encourage them to take time for themselves. Why is it so often different when we try to do the same for our own lives?

I was reminded about us having to put ourselves first today in a yoga class when someone was replying to texts between tracks. Her priority was the person needing the reply, and certainly not the tranquility she might have got from an hour of uninterupted yoga. She may have been right. How often, however, do we put others first when we know that it's really us that need the attention and tender loving care?

The tips this month require those wanting to make changes to be prepared to put themselves first - even if it's only for 5 mins a day.

What's on your To Be list?

I'm preparing for my 'Pots of Confidence' workshop tonight. Most of the evening will be taken up decorating a mug or plate with words, pictures or designs to inspire - such as the one shown here.

My house is full of such inspiration - postcards, pictures, quotes on every surface. Someone visited last week and couldn't believe I had my mission and values pinned up in my bathroom :-).

I was wondering why doing this was important and why it worked. Then I realised we do it every day for our To Do lists. That is we write a list and check it regularly. We even write reminders for ourselves on post its. So why not do it for our To Be lists?

If I look around my office at my To Be lists then I am reminded to: Love, have Patience, Be the change I wish to see in the world, Joy, Awaken, Boldly reclaim my power and even to Grow wings and fly. They're accompanied by many of my brother's beautiful landscape photographs.

What's on your To Be list and where will you put the reminder?

Who are we not to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

'...we ask ourselves "who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?" Actually who are you not to be...' Marianne Williamson

I painted this plate with Marianne's words on my recent holiday and now have a daily reminder as I eat of how fabulous I am :-).

The quote also goes on to say
'..as we let our light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same...'

I wonder what daily reminders you have around you to ensure you too remember to allow your light to shine and remember how brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous you are?

Sometimes you have all you need

Over the weekend I was having visitors. We'd agreed in advance who was bringing what for lunch and refreshments etc. One item on my list was juice. On Friday night I looked in the fridge and realised I only had grapefruit juice and didn't think that offered enough choice. I believed I'd have to go out and buy some more juice early the next morning.

However the next morning my eye caught sight of some apples. It's only then I realised I certainly had all the ingredients for my speciality home made juice: apple, carrot, lime and ginger - mmmmm.

I then wondered how often in life we think we need to look outside ourselves for something when what we have inside is infinitely better.

What would make you proud to have named after you?

Interesting how things happen. Dr Who names a galaxy Alison. I ask a question in LinkedIn about what would make you the proudest to have named after you (not a person). And the responses provide me with the perfect question for my workshops when discussing step 3 of a process I've developed called Mission! (see link)

The last blog will have given you a sense of the 7 steps I've developed to help you get out of the creek or take action to avoid going down it in the first place. After stopping and putting on your life jacket the third step is about using what you enjoy, are good and have passion for, along with connecting to your values, to identify your mission or purpose for your life. In other words what will get you out of bed in the morning with enthusiasm? (This was discussed in my contribution to How not to be like your parents - again see links on rhs.)

I've tried many different questions to get to the heart of the matter and so have others - what's your legacy, what would your eulogy say, what difference would you most like to make in the world etc etc. The question 'what would make you proudest to have named after you' seemed to hit the mark. The answers have been truly inspiring:

Those things being named included: schools, colours, streets, institutions, libraries, rooms, processes, methods, cures, vaccines, parks, funds, charities, awards, hospitals, ways of living, roses and butterflies.

It was the why these would be named after them that seemed to tap into their mission - the difference they wanted to make in life.

What would make you proudest? and why? and what can you do today to start to make it a reality? You may not get the library named after you but you will have made a difference.

"I should have done it ages ago"

"Just had the most amazing weekend retreat with Alison. I never imagined that I would find my paddle in a weekend. It has exceeded my expectations. I am so excited that I can’t wait to get home and start.

As a business person applying the model to my work and personal life worked brilliantly and I have come away with a clear plan. It was so constructive, and the walks, talks and sharing the emotion in such a lovely setting with great views made it a weekend I will treasure and should have done ages ago.

Kathleen Findlay
HR Consultant and bereavement councillor"

What should you have done ages ago that could make as much as an impact on your life? My latest newsletter invites us all to shine. So today's call for action is to identify what you've been promising yourself you will do so you can get out there and shine and do it? If you also let me or someone know what it is we can also hold you accountable for taking the action.

You can never be too authentic

I am proud to say I will be representing Scotland in the Professional Speakers Association xfactor :-) in London in November as a result of winning the heat last night. Which I'm very excited about.

Some of the feedback included how uncomfortable some businesses audiences might have been about the level of disclosure in a personal story - ie too much emotion.

Over a celebrationary drink after I realised that by not sharing as much of the story as I could the audience hadn't been as able to identify with it. So many had just felt it was me bearing all with no relevance to them. Had I gone into the story more and shared the impact on my work and life rather than just stay at the emotional level I'd have engaged them completely.

So rather than pull back from sharing with people tell your story deeper so others can really understand how it relates to them.