Tag: Coaching

I love a good book review

cheese1I was on Amazon buying a Kindle version of The One Minute Manager because it is an excellent book and in the ribbon of “suggestions” below I noticed a link to Who Moved My Cheese which was written by one of the authors. Spouse-man got a copy of it once from work along with the rest of the IT dept and it was a harbinger of bad things coming. I clicked it, curious to read what others thought of it and I saw these reviews, they might be the best I’ve read. I hope you enjoy them too…

cheese

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Got Motivation?

How do you get motivated? How do you keep motivated? Here are some ideas I use.

  • Set deadlines. Get out your calendar and write in a completion date 10 or 12 weeks from now. Then flip back and make yourself some check-in dates along the way. I use my Llewellyn Daily Planetary Guide for this, but Outlook, Google Calendar or a wall calendar with inspiring pictures may be better for you.
  •  Create opportunities. If I want to write more, I need to have a laptop or notebook accessible. If I want to exercise more, I need to get to the gym, walk some errands or plan a weekend hike.

Continue reading “Got Motivation?” →

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Declare war on procrastination!

I was really anxious about getting my research proposal written and I found myself starting projects, making up errands, anything to stay away from it. One of the projects I started was a really wild scarf knitted with 4 yarns held together. Another was the notes I made for myself. These helped me and I hope they help others. If you need help with the handwriting I can translate it for you 🙂 Continue reading “Declare war on procrastination!” →

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Who wants to go back to school?

How many times have you thought that the structure of a class workshop would be better for you that just reading a book on your own? Have you missed the camaraderie,  the ability to study as a group or the deadlines? (just kidding!) Continue reading “Who wants to go back to school?” →

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Labels, Calories, Marketing and You!

I learned an important lesson recently. That I have to read labels every single time even on products I “trust.” Product formulations and labels change. Protein bars I trusted in the past have substituted maltitol for sucralose and my BBQ sauce added high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The other thing is that according to independent lab testing, diet products, including products made for diabetics, have been shown to have sugar, corn starch and HFCS that are not on the label. It appears that when manufacturers run short of an ingredient, they just substitute something else, even if that something else is sugar in a sugar-free labeled product. This makes it impossible to trust anything.
Continue reading “Labels, Calories, Marketing and You!” →

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Sketch Theatre

Have you seen Sketch Theatre? It is a website devoted to video clips of artists sketching, not bio-pics about artists or documentaries of artists talking about their works or anything like that. Just artists engaging in the process of sketching.  It would be great to watch and learn about drawing in various styles, but what I enjoy is just watching the process of creation happening. I’ll admit I am jealous, The process of writing just doesn’t look nearly as cool.

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The Car Metaphor

Car Clipart

Imagine that your body is a car. Now, we both know it isn’t a car, but a car is the perfect vehicle, no pun intended, to learn about fuel and how we fuel our bodies. So you have a car that you love, or at least care about, and you want to provide it with fuel so that you can drive it around and go places.

Now most of us don’t top off the fuel tank continually while we are driving around, we drive until we are well into the reserve and the little “E” indicator is lit up. But what do we do to our bodies?

Continue reading “The Car Metaphor” →

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Improve your workout!

Are you cranking out 20 minutes or even an hour on the treadmill but not seeing the results you’d like?  Are you taking the same class week after week, or running the same run? Are you wondering what is the single best way to improve your workout? Here it is… add intensity!

The human body is remarkably efficient and it will not expend energy that it doesn’t need to expend. We are animals, after all, which means we are built for high levels of energy expenditure interspersed with periods of rest. This is in contrast to our modern lifestyles which consist of moderate to high levels of stress interspersed with periods of moderate activity and too little sleep.  Kick up your gym session or you will not even come close to tapping into the calorie burn your body is capable of, and then give yourself some real rest as a reward.

Ways to generate some workout enthusiasm:

Fantasize about your upcoming workout while you are at work.

Add hypnosis to your arsenal of techniques. Try one of the generic mp3 downloads in my new link on the right or better yet, call or email me to learn more about individual hypnosis with the perfect suggestions for you and your unique goals.

Think like a hobbyist, get excited by reading about new methods and research in your chosen field of activity, try some new techniques. They won’t all work but they will give you a learning curve to surmount.

Keep up with new equipment or gadget reviews. It has been proven that a pedometer will encourage you to go farther, and a stopwatch to go faster.

Plan new routes for running, walking, or hiking. Whether you exercise outdoors or on the treadmill, a different program or scenery will add some spring to your step.

Cross-train, try something new.

Proselytize! Tell me what you do to stay motivated.

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Home for the Holidays?

Years ago I began to notice that friends and clients were edgier, more whiny and generally more demanding during the holiday season. At first, I thought this just coincided with all the cliches of the holidays being stressful and reawakening ghosts of long-ago family holidays, but I have come to believe that the problem is often not so much the memories of family holidays as it is the reality of family holidays. Most of these people were still at the age where they were “going home” to celebrate with their families. The question is, how do you spend time with your family without regressing to thirteen years old?

One useful technique is to pretend that you are a guest and that they are someone else’s family.  Just watch the interactions around you and try to see what the games really are. Yes, there are always games going on, and they aren’t all bad, the trick is to not take them personally. You could also play “consultant” and analyze (just in your head, not out loud) how the family would look to an outsider. Every family has its own level on the continuum of function to dysfunction, so try to see what is working, as well as what isn’t.   The third technique is to approach the gathering as a game. How would you act if you had no other agenda than to be happy? Don’t try to create the perfect holiday, don’t try to train your family or to be accepted by them, listen, rather than arguing, teach by your peaceful example, rather than preaching, laugh and ignore teasing, rather than frowning or pointing out faults, never say “always” or “never” and have fun to the best of your ability.

Click for more suggestions from Livestrong.

Make some holiday rituals of your own.

What have you found that works or doesn’t work for you?

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