I have written about this many times before. The key message is that success or the pursuit of success is a waste of time if you are unwell. Poor health limits excellence. Poor health is limiting.
A key goal should always be robust good health, starting with a healthy diet. Poor food choices are no doubt the number one precursor to disease.
To achieve any worthwhile goal, begin with the end in mind. You will have a gap between where you are now and where you want to be [the goal]. Break your journey into easily achievable steps. Each step becomes a milestone. The more of these little milestones you can pass, the closer you get to your goal.
Confucius said it best: The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.
Following this process is really good for your own personal development not to say your sense of well being.
If you are unsure about food choices or diet, get some advice. Maybe just throw away all soda style drinks. Limit bread and maybe have a salad made with leafy greens. Go easy on the dressings. All store bought snack foods should be dumped. Drink more water.
Take a little exercise. Maybe commit to a brief walk late afternoons each day. Movement is good for your whole being.
These ideas are seemingly very simple and they are! Surprisingly many won’t even bother to start, which is why, on a global basis, diseases such as cancer, obesity, heart disease and diabetes are increasing at alarming rates.
A good idea is to take some basic measurements, waist, weight for example before you start. Over time you can revisit these. It is a simple way to judge your progress.
I invite you to begin to make small changes today.
If you have no idea how or where to begin, then email me. Together we can get you started.
Comments Off
I often wonder why online marketers bother with their automated “cheat” sytems attempting to hijack legitimate websites in a vain attempt to divert the genuine reader and followers to their dodgy rubbish.
As in life, you won’t get very far by cheating or taking short cuts.
If you want anything worthwhile, hire a coach, set some gaols and take action. Your sense of self – worth automatically lifts.
Life begins to get better.
You will experience ups and downs, highs and lows, some failure, but that’s life. Those that are prepared to pick them selves up, persevere until the end is reached, will find that all of that pain, that fear and doubt was well worth it.
Comments Off
Recent publicity over synthetic cannabis and its evil effects just shows how many kiwis are condemning themselves to a life of failure and degradation.
There are other ways of “getting through my day” than relying on an unnatural substance – so “I can cope with life.”
This is nothing less than a total cop out.
Sadly, many social agencies condone such behaviour, ultimately at the expense of those who get going and do their best to gain employment and pay their way in the world.
Taking the easy way out has no reward. History tells us this.
Anything worthwhile – and I suggest increasing one’s own self worth; self – esteem and thus placing one self into a position of becoming an attractive proposition for future prospects does take hard work. Consistent hard work.
As a passionate advocate of personal development here at Aha Factor, I am available to talk to any one less than [honestly] happy with where they are without conditions.
I challenge you to get in touch.
Comments Off
Americas Cup challenge.
It’s all about leadership.
Comments Off
Too many people seem to have lost sight of the need to be organised.
At least to what I would consider a reasonable degree.
If you don’t have a budget, you have no real control over your spending.
If you don’t have agreements with others in your household, then anything and everything is up for debate – ALL the time!
Much of your life will be experienced as one argument after the other, and it will be ‘somebody else’ who is to blame.
Sooner, rather than later, you struggle to pay the bills, stress out over relatively minor issues and spiral downwards.
That’s not the path to personal growth
Neither is it the pathway to success, only failure.
A couple of hours spent with a coach should see you equipped to begin your journey toward harmony at home.
Only when the clutter of disorganisation is addressed can you begin your journey of self growth.
Money is usually top of the agenda when it comes to disharmony.
Perhaps I should say lack of money.But is it lack, or is it poor management?
Remember, that which cannot be measured cannot be managed.
You cannot manage your money unless you have a budget [ a plan], and the same goes for pretty much everything in life.
Go easy on yourself and those close to you and take a little time to make some plans.
Don’t know where to start?
Contact me here
Comments Off
Spending time out in Nature; this time with an Orca or two! Good for the soul.
No Comments »
Bad Habits and How to Break Them
First off you have to decide whether a habit [or behaviour] that you engage in is actually bad.
Secondly I suppose you’d need to decide if you want to get rid of it.
Let’s assume for this discussion that smoking and over indulging in alcohol and food are bad habits.
Often we indulge in them because somehow we feel supported by them in certain contexts.
Frequently in social occasions, a puff of a cigarette seems to help us keep calm. It is in fact a prop that helps fill in the gaps say in conversation or gives us something to do so we don’t feel like a ‘jerk’ just standing around.
A drink will offer much the same, and a few more will ‘relax’ you and somehow you seem to be much better in conversation.
Food, or too much food, will really sneak up on you. It is so easy to just grab a snack in between activities. I have heard it called eating for nurture not nature.
We have taught ourselves to ignore our body’s signals. Obesity is becoming a global epidemic with associated health issues.
Whatever the habit or behaviour, you can change or eliminate them.
Investigative journalist Charles Duhigg writes in his book ‘The Power of Habit’, that all habits have three components; a cue [or trigger for a particular behavior], a routine [the behavior itself] and a reward [how your brain decides whether to remember a habit].
Scientists believe that the key to breaking bad habits is to break the cue-routine- reward cycle.
Duhigg offers a four step process which looks very similar to how I work as a coach.
1. Identify the routine
2. Experiment with rewards – let’s say switch an unhealthy snack with a piece of fruit.
3. Isolate the cue – there are five of them; location, time of day, emotional state, people around you and what happened before the behavior.
4. Have a plan.
In reality, none of the above is easy if you are ‘hooked’ on something.
In my mind you have to decide whether you want to keep the habit or not.
Then you need to look for the circumstances that ‘cause the habit’. Keep a log or journal on this [reference 3 above] and notice the patterns. What reward will you use to help?
Lastly your plan: As in all goal setting, getting from where you are to where you want to be can be a great big yawning gulf. However, a series of small easily achievable action steps do add up to closing that gap over time.
Each success with these small steps builds belief that, yes, you can change.
This is the essence of personal and self development.
I recall my giving up smoking. I had made many attempts to ‘cut down’ in order to eventually give up. This never worked. One day at a conference, we noticed a colleague from out of town was not smoking – he had been a heavy smoker as we all were back then.” Hey Kerry have you cut down?” We asked. “No” he replied, “I don’t smoke.”
Therein lay the clue to Kerry’s success. He had decided to stop smoking. He threw the cigarettes out of his car window and told himself – and others – “I don’t smoke.” Not I have quit or any acknowledgement of his having even been a smoker.
I tried this a few years later – when I was motivated enough to drop the habit. And it worked!
Now I don’t suggest that a cold turkey strategy such as this is easy or in fact will work for you, but it does demonstrate that it is possible to break the chains of addictive behaviours.
As the saying goes, “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
For what it’s worth, I took up smoking at age 8 and quit when I was 35. So I had been ‘at it’ for quite a while.
Need any help with breaking your habits? Send me an email.
Your coach
Phil
No Comments »
Our local paper has a front page article on a photographer who, after 40 years is about to follow his passion.
As a youngster he read fictional stories about African wildlife.
Straight after leaving school he worked in the darkroom for the same paper that features him today.
Now his passion for photographing wildlife has resulted in a [first ever], black and white photo featuring on the cover of the 21st edition of Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
This has been sufficient incentive for him to give up his job and fulfill a dream to build a photographic business.
This is a great story. It epitomises the power of patience, of persistence, of following your passion and being ready to make that leap into the unknown.
It is about getting clear about what you want and taking action consistently until you get the result you want.
In a couple of words personal development.
You can read the full article here.
No Comments »
|