Last weekend brought with it St. Patrick’s Day and so I had a look through some quotes from Irish writers and found the above quote from GB Shaw.  It got me thinking, how brightly is my life burning at the moment?  How can it be brighter?  Am I settling for less than I should? Is my comfort zone expanding or contracting at the moment? Is my life in balance? What’s important to me in my daily life?  Am I honouring that? What do I want to change?

It was time to get the coaching tools out and get back to basics. It had been a while…

… I found some self limiting beliefs starting to blossom, identified some values that had been put on the back burner, and noticed that I was getting quite cosy in my comfort zone, even if it wasn’t necessarily making me happy.  It’s time for a change, and I am starting on my plans. I am preparing to shine again.  I feel better already!

Mental fitness is a term I heard Neil O’Brien (Time to Fly)  use recently.  Good mental fitness helps you push out the boundaries of your comfort zone, it keeps you motivated. Good mental fitness is demonstrated through effective mood management, staying in a positive mindset longer (building this habit releases dopamine) and strong individual resilience (demonstrated by how quick you can bounce back) increases your overall potential and success.     Like any type of fitness, you need to work at it, get into a routine, and keep it going, or your mental fitness goes into reversal and  your comfort zone shrinks.  We can all let things slip, including myself, but the most important thing is to recognise the slip, pick back up where we left off and keep moving forward and challenging ourselves to take action. We are masters of our own destiny, pushing out the boundaries of the comfort zone brings growth and new opportunities.

In the words of the late great Steve Jobs:

“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something…almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”

So why not take stock now, use the questions I asked myself, and go do that thing you are uncomfortable with…  that’s the action that will get you out of your comfort zone! What’s stopping you?

All the best from Park West,

Grace

• What things worked out well for you?
• What did you learn?
• What memories of 2012 are you grateful for?
• What will you do differently in 2013?
• What new adventures/new places/new things would you like to experience in 2013?

Each year brings with it a fair share of ups and downs, but maintaining a positive outlook and cultivating a willingness to meet the challenges head on gives strength and fortitude in the face of adversity.  The best way to do this is to keep a healthy body, practice your positive creative energy, stay true to your core values, be grateful for those who support you, and team your dreams with definite actions.

You can do it in 2013, there’s no stopping you!

All the best from Park West,

Grace

Back at the start of April I had just received the link to the NHS podcast from Cian, and was starting out on the 9 week podcast programme with excitement, trepidation and a fair bit of curiosity as to where it would take me (apart from around the local park!)

So, team Couch started as two, myself and Suzie, and we dusted off our runners and took to Corkagh Park on a sunny afternoon in early April.

Week 1 consisted of a brisk 5-minute walk, then alternating 60 seconds of running and 90 seconds of walking, for a total of 20 minutes. Easy peasy eh? Well… as a person who never ran any significant distance before, the first time we tried this the 60 seconds running felt three times as long as the 90 seconds of walking! I thought I was going to throw up by the third 60 second run. Guided on by the consoling podcast lady and the smart mix of fast and slow beats on the musaak track, we persevered, focussed on the other activities in the park, and finally got to the end of the podcast, celebrating with team couch’s brand of “high 5″ (i.e. we totally failed to make contact)

There’s a saying in Irish “Tús maith, leath na h’oibre”, which roughly translates as a good start is half the battle… and buoyed up by completing week 1 part 1, our couch to 5k journey had some momentum and with each gradual success we continued to train 3 times a week finally reaching Week 6 part 1 in… well… a little over 7 weeks! Go us, freestyling with the podcast!

During that 7 or so weeks team couch got to know how much is actually happening up the road from us, out there, in the fresh air!

We saw cricket matches, football matches, baseball matches, other joggers, runners, walkers, dog walkers, fishers, men, women and children enjoying the open fields, pet farms, Corky the pig, squirrels stashing acorns, wedding parties being photographed, and even finished one of our evening runs to a line of grazing rabbits cheering us home (that last one might have been the joggers high, or oxygen deficit kicking in though!) Team couch was getting hooked on the outdoors, progression, and fond of our new and varied “Park Life” community!

At week 6… just after our first 20 minute run, the hardest one so far, and our biggest achievement… things ground to a halt! Supporting the boys in green in Poland, work commitments and some minor injuries saw a roadblock appear in front of Team Couch’s journey to 5K nirvana.

We stopped, we got frustrated, we waited, we missed the Park Life, and eventually after 6 weeks, we pushed down the roadblocks and got back to business… wihooooo! It was hard, but doable!

By podcast week 8, team couch had expanded to 3 people with H. joining us. We were up to 28 minutes of running, and our “team couch high 5″ was getting more accurate with every session! Not to mention, H. knew of a 5K charity race coming up… so we now had a specific goal to aim for, and with the added benefit of supporting “>two great charities.

Race day was last week… our first 5K, by this stage, we even had our very own team couch coach/camera man to cheer us on and keep us motivated…it was sunny and there was a band playing, and we did it, it can be done! Give it a go! Go team couch!!!

All the best from Park West!

Well the first thing you need to know is you are not alone in your situation, and more importantly there’s definitely something you can do about it.

If you are feeling stuck in a rut, or worried about making a job or career change in the current climate, it might be time to explore your career choices with a career coach. With so much time spent at work, it makes sense that if you can invest this working time doing something you love or get a kick out of, you will feel happier at work and inevitably the rest of your life will also be positively influenced.

A career coach will work with you and your unique working situation to:
1) Take stock of your own skills, experience and talents
2) Analyse your personal working style and how you can impact your own work and the behaviours of those you work with
3) Find ways to improve your enjoyment in your current role
4) Explore other career industries, roles and opportunities
5) Ensure you put your best foot forward in terms of CV and interview preparation if you decide to take the next step in your career path.

For further advice on career change, interview coaching, CV preparation or any career or life related change, contact info@mareus.com and we will arrange a call to see if career coaching with Mareus is for you!

Mareus in the media:
For all you job seekers out there who have reached interview stages, firstly WELL DONE! Secondly, be sure to check out our current featured article with the Sunday Business Post Online on “5 things not to do in a job interview”

http://www.businesspost.ie/#!story/Home/News/5+things+not+to+do+in+a+job+interview/id/19410615-5218-4ffb-e37d-0188e4287355

All the best from Park West!

Whatever you call it… how we manage our day, and our “things to do” has a very big impact on the lifestyle we live.

Do you find you can get overwhelmed by all the little bits and pieces you would like to do, or think you should do, or someone else said you should do…. and suddenly you feel like you will never get it all done… and what’s the point? Or do you keep trying to do it all, which is grand until something cracks (health, patience, relationship, or you start making mistakes)?

A lot of the time these bits and pieces are just distractions, or crutch activities, and they keep you away from achieving your main goals in life… e.g. more time with family, researching a new business venture, travelling the world, starting a hobby, improving your health and fitness… whatever floats your boat.

In interviews when asked how they plan their working day, most candidates mention making a tick list of some sort just before they end their shift or on the morning of their next shift. Not a bad idea depending on how you put that tick list together.

Completing a long tick list of little things to do can give a sense of achievement at the end of the day, but does it really make a difference if you create an audit list of all the various sized staples in the stationery room before you put in the next stationery order when the printer is running out of paper?

Are you putting to much focus on feeling efficient rather than being effective in completing your work and chasing your goals?

FOCUS…

Believe it or not your “To do list” shouldn’t really have more than one or two priority tasks on it each day, and these things should be the important things, actions that have a clear impact on what you are trying to achieve. Also, your “to do list” should be achievable in the day ahead… if it’s not… you might feel overwhelmed and unsuccessful at the end of the day, or by the end of the week.

ACTION…

Sit down this evening, and pick the few key actions you need to achieve tomorrow, the impact actions, the ones that will make a difference to you and your goals, and put that on your “IMPACT LIST”. Forget the rest for now (the fiddly bits, the things that are nice to do, but you haven’t been asked to do), if they become important they can go on the shortened list in the future. Stick with the plan tomorrow…

Once you have your “IMPACT LIST” completed, stop working, finish on-time, go out and treat yourself how best you like… maybe a walk in the park, reading a book, a trip to the cinema, helping someone else out, whatever makes you happy! It’s all about balance.

In other words…
“The Main Thing is to Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing”
~ Stephen Covey

If you are interested in reading more on increasing your effectiveness maybe check out one or both of the following two books… there are some great practical tips in them and they’ve given me plenty to think about!

Hi All,

Knowing how much I like a good owl’ challenge… or at least knowing how much I love talking about a good owl’ challenge, Cian O’C has called my bluff and passed on this link to me Couch to 5K plan NHS

It’s 9 weeks of podcasts, designed to get even the couch-iest potato-iest of beginners off the couch and onwards to running 30 minutes non-stop by the end of the 9 weeks… wihoooooooooo

So, I’m going to give it a shot and I’ll be sure to share the tales of joggers high (if it exists) and anything else that catches my attention along the way!

If you want to join me, in this 9 week quest for de-”potato”-ing, you can download the podcast at the link below(it’s halfway down the webpage on the right)

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/c25k/Pages/couch-to-5k-plan.aspx

Go on, you know you want to! And if you do, please post your comments and let me know how you are getting on! It’ll be good to know I am not alone.

“No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable” Socrates

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.”
Edith Lovejoy Pierce

There was something nice about getting a fresh new copybook when I was in school. I would write so neatly in the first few pages, and then unavoidably I would mispell or smudge something by about page four, and the motivation to maintain my good habits would wane… and sure I knew I would get another copybook in a while and a second chance to be super neat and tidy, no harm done. The cycle would repeat year on year, with somewhat similar results.

It’s New Year’s eve, that time of year where we look back on things past, and then look forward with new hope and expectation for the adventure that can be found in the new year ahead. On this the eve of the new year, January 2012 is your new blank copybook, why not open the first page and write down a few new things you would like to experience or change in 2012… and then just do it!

So… is it as easy as that in reality? Well as anyone who has made new year’s resolutions in the past knows, it’s a difficult thing to break out of old habits, even ones we recognise as bad habits, or habits that hold us back. Often by mid January the runners are gathering dust, and we are back on the sofa eating fast food, thinking, “look it’s raining, I don’t think missing one night at my class will be a big deal, and there’s supposed to be a major shock in Fair City tonight that I don’t want to miss, but I’ll get back to it next week though, I promise.”

There is a great comfort in both our good and bad habits, we know how they work for and against us, and even if some of our habits make us unhappy… well, we have a good idea how the situation is likely to play out, so “that’s ok isn’t it, better the devil you know?”

Staying in our habit zones means we’re probably not going to be surprised or under pressure or out of our comfort zones very often, but it also means we limit our exposure to new experiences and learnings. Habits can narrow our lifepath experiences, and quench the natural spirit of adventure and curiosity we are born with. Just look at the scrapes toddlers get into before they learn habits at home and in school and in life if you don’t believe adventure is in our nature.

Nevertheless we live in a chaotic world, a world with much uncertainty, where life is precious and precarious. We never really know what lies ahead. I think we develop habits to try and put some order on that chaos, and feel more in control of our destiny and sometimes that can hold us back from living our BESt and truest lives.

As a coach, I ask you to put 15 minutes aside over the next week. Get that new fancy notebook out, and check in with yourself.

1) What are your current “healthy” habits and what are your current “hold-back” habits? What will you do about it?

2) What does BESt You in 2012 look like? Is there a hobby or an activity you have been putting off? Is there an ambition you haven’t told anyone about for fear of what they might think, or for fear that they might encourage you to go for it! Ahhhh!!!!

3) Focus on the positive, not on holding yourself back, and then when you have your list, rank the list in order placing a big number 1 beside the item that most captivates you, then continue to rank the items through the list (2,3,4 etc.) down to the item that least does.

4) Pick one step you need to take before 9th January that will bring you a little closer to achieving item number 1 (it could be booking a class, speaking with an expert, booking a coaching session to keep you on track, or just doing it). Then pick another step for the following week and so on through January.

Remember, if nothing changes, nothing changes. If we carry the same habits and behaviours into 2012, we will continue to get the same results as we did in 2011. So take stock now, is this for you? Or would you like to change a few things, start a few adventures, and burst out of your comfort zone in 2012? If so, make a good habit of challenging yourself in 2012.

Don’t forget to get in touch by phone or email if I can help with the New You in 2012, or if you have any questions about coaching or how it could benefit you.

Release your natural spirit of adventure, and let’s lead our BESt life from the front in 2012!

Thanks to everyone for your support in 2011.

All the best from Park West,

Merry Christmas to you and yours. The holidays are a good time to look back on all you have achieved in 2011. Enjoy the rest and make sure to get a good break, for new adventures lie ahead in 2012!

Nollaig Shona agus Athbhliain Faoi Mhaise,

All the best from Park West

Grace

P.S. I’ve just won my first Christmas Cracker victory of 2012… onwards and upwards to the dizzying heights of Pictionary and Scrabble Trickster! Have a good one everyone.

The Street Performance World Championships are attempting to break the World Record for the most Wally’s in one place in Dublin’s Merrion Square again today!

If you haven’t got your Wally costume you can purchase one at the event in Merrion Square this afternoon for €15 euro and the profits from costume sales go to the “Africa Aware” charity.  The world record attempt kicks off after 6pm today. Go on, be a Wally, you know you want to!

For more info check out the Street Performance World Championship Community Page on Facebook.

We’re off to iron our stripey jerseys and bobble hats… see you in there!

All the best from Park West

Here it is…  

When You Are Old

W.B. Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

——————————————————–

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

——————————————————–

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Have a good day today, whatever you decide to do with it!

All the best from Park West,