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Can Your Biggest Strength Be Your Biggest Weakness?

19 June 2013

Hi!

It sounds odd to suggest that your biggest strength might also be exactly the opposite doesn't it?   But it can be the case and it's worth being aware of, as failure to understand can create a lot of unnecessary stress.   Even with our biggest talents, there can be a downside.

Take the late Mrs Thatcher for example, her strength of character and determination got her to the highest position in the land, but at the end of her career, her inflexibility meant that she was unable to "move with the times" and was ultimately turned on by her previously strongest supporters.

There are numerous occasions where we can find ourselves in similar situations.

Let's take the example of people like me and many of the people I work with who like to help people.   It's good to have a caring nature and to be able to do something for someone else, but where could this go wrong and work against you?

1. First make sure your attention is wanted and ask permission to help.   Otherwise you can overstep boundaries and appear to be interfering, resulting in a completely different reaction than the one you wanted.

2. Know when to say 'no', even when you would like to say 'yes', to avoid becoming overwhelmed and overloaded.

3. Make time for yourself.  Sometimes in helping others, we forget to cater for our own needs and can find ourselves feeling resentful, angry and unable to do the things we most need and love.

There are numerous other examples, including those who are very methodical but can end up slowing down progress or people who work very quickly but can be slack on details.  See what I mean?

As with everything, there is a positive and a negative side to even our greatest talents.   Know where your talents lie, where and when it's appropriate to use them and avoid inappropriate use which will cause you unnecessary stress.

I hope this article is helpful and thought-provoking.   Let me know if you have any comments or subjects that are dear to you, that you are concerned about and you’d particularly like me to cover.

 

With love

Annie x

Breathing Space

 

For more articles by Annie please sign up for the monthly Gateway newsletter


Redefine Success and ENEGISE!

19 June 2013

By Jackie Mendoza

change aheadEver stopped in your tracks and asked yourself: is this it? Is this all my life’s about?

Ever found yourself winning all the medals but thinking: hang on, this is someone else’s race, not mine?

You’ve got the dream job, the dream life-style and yet…..you don’t feel you’re in your zone.

Let’s face it, we’ve all been conditioned to live busy lives and we’re all left gasping for more time at the end of an often stressful day.

And what happens the following day? We wake up, drag ourselves out of bed, stagger to the shower and start worrying or planning what’s in store for the day ahead. We’re already using what little energy we may have stored up from last night’s sleep only to brace ourselves for the morning’s commute. We arrive at the office feeling not too excited about being there and dreading the length of our to do lists. Somehow we make it through the day by looking forward to lunch or the moment we grab our coat to head home.

No wonder so many of us hit the dead zone. No wonder we end up standing in a packed train or sitting in bumper to bumper traffic thinking: is this it??

Last year, at 7am on a dark winter’s morning as I was having my cereal before the morning commute, I realised I didn’t want life to continue this way. I also realised: what you resist persists.

So if I keep resisting that really yucky, flat feeling I get when I wake up and think of the day ahead, it’ll just go on and on. That morning I felt that yucky flat feeling and I decided to listen and listen real good.
How to Redefine Success and Create a Different Zone

This is a tried and tested method – I’ve used it to create a much better quality of life for myself where I’m only doing the work that I love – when I want, how I want. I now have much more time for myself, those dear to me and my interests and no, I’m no longer having breakfast at 7 in the morning (unless I choose to) and I certainly don’t do the morning commute anymore (I go for a run instead).

OK, so I’m not going to lie and say the journey’s been easy. It hasn’t. But following a route with clearly defined tracks helped. Here’s my tried and tested “interval training” guide (hey, why not keep the running analogy going?) for body, mind and soul:
Track 1: Success orientation

Ask yourself: what is that yucky, flat feeling telling you? More often than not it’s telling you that you’re wanting and needing to make a big change in your life. As we grow and change (yes, we all do, whether we know it or not!), our ideas of success don’t grow and change with us. We’re so busy being busy that we don’t realise we’ve been jogging to the same playlist for years. And guess what? That playlist becomes all too familiar. It no longer challenges us. It just brings us the same old feelings and the same old results. It’s like running to “Unchained Melody” instead of “Pump It”.

 

So what do you need to do? Ask yourself the question we hardly ever have the time to ask ourselves: what does success look/feel/sound like to me now? Then ask yourself the other question we hardly ever have time to ask: what is my passion? (This will point to where you need to focus on from now on)


Track 2: Visualise your new route and set your personal bests

All successful runners, and athletes for that matter, set themselves goals (or personal bests) for that all-important race or competition.

When I was preparing for my first race, a good piece of advice I was given was to visualise my route. Doing this would help me mentally prepare for what lay ahead. So every evening of the week leading up to the race, I’d take myself away to a quiet place with a map of the route. I’d study the map and take note of all the important milestones – hydration stations, the half-way point, any hills or steep inclines. I’d then hone in on the map even more and imagine myself running the route – what would I see and hear? How would I feel at the start, reaching the half-way point and crossing that finish line?

To keep you motivated and fully focused on your new route, it’s important for you to map it out and set some personal bests. But before that, ask yourself two other killer questions: What do I want? and: Why do I want it? (The why – purpose – is really important. Forget to answer this and you lose traction and momentum immediately (Why do you think so many new year’s resolutions fail?).

Now define and map your present state (the start) to your desired state (the finish line).
Track 3 – What are the hurdles along the way and how will you overcome them?

Yes, believe me, there will be hurdles and you will overcome them! What are the main hurdles? Fears, limiting beliefs and your own inner dialogue. During this track you need to be dead honest with yourself. You need to name those fears, own those beliefs and fess up to the fact you’re bad-mouthing yourself almost every second of the day. Go on, admit it, we all do it and to our own disadvantage, no one else’s!
Track 4 – Drop the habits that are zapping your performance

So what’s affecting your happiness and performance right now? What or who is draining you? Are you spending too much time with people who love a good moan and only see the worst in others, including you (when you’re not listening)? Are you actually supporting their beliefs by constantly giving yourself a hard time?

Do you tend to believe others when they say: life is tough and then you die?

Let’s rewind to the Olympics. If you were an elite athlete, would you be performing at your very best carrying around all those fears, limiting beliefs and inner criticisms? Hell no. You need to find the right tools to drop all the baggage once and for all.
Track 5 – Think like the elite athlete you can be

Yes, aim big. Why not? If you want the rest of your life to feel energised and passionate, you need to think like an athlete not like your worst enemy. Focus on how you’re going to achieve your goals instead of all the reasons why you won’t – in short, you need to ditch that inner bitch critic of yours!

And last but not least:
Track 6 – The training camp of life – continuous and never-ending improvement

You learn and succeed by doing so this track is about taking everything you’ve learned above and applying it. OK, there will be tweaks along the way but at least you’re safe in the knowledge and feeling that you’re now living life in a totally different zone.


How To Make Change Work For You

19 June 2013

By Jackie Mendoza

 

How many times have you promised yourself you’re going to change something mega-important in your life and instead you end up flat on your face at the first hurdle? Failed New Year’s resolutions come to mind?

shutterstock_105422951Relax, I’m going to tell you how you can bust those hurdles so you can finally achieve that big change you want to make.

Let’s face it, we all reach that point when things don’t feel right anymore: you can’t get to sleep on Sunday night because you really can’t face another pointless week at the office. You end up popping another Nurofen because you’re so stressed your head’s about to explode. You catch another lurgy. You reach for another helping of Haagen Dazs, or wine, or both! Yep, most of us have seen, heard and felt what that point of almost no return can be like. That moment when we know something’s got to change but we just don’t know how. And: change to what exactly?

At this point a lot of us just throw in the towel and say: that’s life. You lose some, you win some and right now I’m losing but I don’t know what else to do.

Amazingly though, there are people like you who say: **** this. There’s got to be more to life than this and I’m going to find it!!

To those amazing people like you out there: YES! There is more to life out there and you can make change happen if you’re ready to put your mind, emotions and body through the right paces.

Learn How To Pace Change To Achieve Results

Most people find change difficult because they haven’t learnt to pace themselves – they jump in without any prep or planning for the new “route” ahead. In many ways coping with change is like training for a race – no one in their right mind would run a marathon without doing a 5K, 10K and half marathon first.

So how do you pace yourself for change? Here’s a tried and tested method I personally used when I decided I had to change my life so I could finally do work I really love and still get paid for it.

Achieving successful change is all about pacing and working through this particular process to end result took me about 6 months. Look at each pace maker as a must-have along your route to change – you can’t run with the next one successfully until you’ve really experienced what it’s like to be put through the paces at your existing pace maker point. In other words, don’t run before you can walk!

Here are the 5 pace makers you want to have in place:

Pace Maker 1 – Describe clearly the big change you want to make and why

Pace Maker 2 – Map out where you want to get to and how

Pace Maker 3 - Find out if you’re resisting making the change in any way (this is where you might come face to face with some fears and/or limiting beliefs)

Pace Maker 4 – Work on dropping the fears, beliefs and habits that may be stopping you from making the change

Pace Maker 5 – Focus your mind on making the change happen. In other words, start thinking like an elite athlete who wants just one thing: to win.

Pace Maker 6 - Take action and keep reviewing past pace makers along the way

 

Want my specific help with any of these pace makers?

Visit this page now:

https://www.gatewayworkshops.co.uk/massage_courses/life-coaching-courses/


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