When you walk, your brain synapses fire in different ways Great minds literally think on their feet. Many of history’s famous philosophers, artists, scientists, writers, and creators valued value walking as much as they valued productive work.
Aristotle, Charles Dickens, Henry David Thoreau, Virginia Woolf, Albert Einstein, Friedrich Nietzsche and many others made time for long walks. They used long walks for contemplation, reflection and problem-solving. They found walking helped them think better, ponder over ideas and get more done once they got back to writing, creating, designing or composing. “The moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow,” Henry David Thoreau, a philosopher, poet, and environmental scientist, once said. Aristotle used to conduct some of his lectures while walking on the school grounds. William Wordsworth once said walking was “indivisible” from the creative act of writing poetry. Charles Dickens used to walk for 20 miles after writing in the morning. 
Hiring a candidate can feel like reaching the finish line of a journey. After weeks or months of recruiting efforts, you finally found the right fit. But it’s not – it’s actually the beginning of a crucial stage of your hiring process: onboarding.
“It is an incredibly vital stage of the hiring process because employees are acclimated to their position, the company’s philosophies, and what the organization has to offer during onboarding,” says Jamie Olson, Head of People & Culture at Continu, a learning amplification platform for teams. “It also increases motivation, resulting in employees who are dedicated to the company’s success, and promotes the retention of new recruits by making them feel like a part of the team.” Your onboarding process is the first impression. It can make or break the long-term chances of success of your new team member – it’s when expectations are set and important information is passed along. Olson broke down everything you need to know about how to effectively welcome a new employee to the team. Learn more in the checklist and onboarding tips below. The ultimate onboarding checklistFirst of all, it’s important not to “wing it.” Onboarding doesn’t consist of greeting your new report and making a few introductions before leaving them on their own. You’ll need to create a streamlined process that is consistent every time you hire someone new. Here is a checklist. Feeling Overwhelmed? Here's the Counterintuitive Cure, According to a Time Management Expert29/4/2022
It might feel like you have too much to do. Context switching could be the real culprit. Do you often feel overwhelmed, that you have too much for you to do and you can't get to it all? That's a very common feeling, says Anna Dearmon Kornick, certified time management coach and head of community at Clockwise, which makes time management software for teams. But the reason for that feeling may not be what you think it is, she says.
It may not be because you have too much work to do. It could be that you have too many different important matters to focus on at once. "All of that context switching leads to ovewhelm," she says in an interview with Inc.com. Worse, it can create the illusion that you aren't getting anything done. "We're basically making an inch of progress on all our projects, instead of making a lot of progress in one area," she says. "It's so small that you get frustrated by the fact that you're not seeing major progress, which gives you negative feelings about the projects, which causes you to feel bad about yourself or think you're not good enough." 
Some are polar opposites of the typical cliche advice. Use them to unlock your high-performing future self. The morning shapes your day in mysterious ways. It shouldn’t as there are 24 hours in a day — but it does. Weird. I’m not one of those 4 A.M. cold shower peeps anymore. I prefer a realistic start to the day. It’s even more important for me because I have no job or boss to report to. So if I stuff up the morning, over time, I can stuff up my life and end up warming an office chair in a skyscraper of broken dreams, dying to escape (again). Do these things before 8 A.M. to crush your day. 
Just as life is constantly changing, the brain is constantly changing. It is through repetition that thinking patterns, and consequently behaviour patterns can be shifted, tweaked, changed or completely replaced with more positive empowering ones. Through repetition the brain rewires itself.
Science has proven the brain can rewire itself. This is fantastic news especially for anybody wishing to improve the quality of their life and engaging the support of a coach for this 'change' process. Making, and more importantly sustaining, any changes in thinking or in behaviour patterns, would be very difficult, if not impossible, without this scientific truth. Knowing this offers coaching clients not only motivation but also confidence to continue on the path to 'change', which sometimes can be a difficult one. Neuroscience has shown the brain can be rewired 
5 Simple ideas you can apply with ease — even if you're busy. When was the last time you sat still in silence and did nothing for a while?
A few hours ago? Yesterday? Last week? No idea? While we often try to squeeze more and more into our busy schedules, what really happens is that our need for speed leads to chaos. We end up feeling more stressed, less focused, less connected, and less productive. When we're under pressure, we often believe we need to hurry up and do more,while the real answer often lies in slowing down and sitting still. Each year, more and more people report that their lives have become busier and more stressful. And one of the biggest threats to our mental health is today's glorified "hustle culture" that makes so many people believe that their worth as a human being is defined by their level of productivity. But that's not true. Your value as a human being isn't defined by how much you work, achieve, or produce. You're worthy of love and a sense of accomplishment no matter what you do or "achieve." You don't need to do more or be more. Maybe you even need to slow down and do less. 
An assumption is a thought or conclusion drawn when someone says or does something. It is a reaction. You do not have the full picture or asked any questions yet to be able to make an informed decision. Conclusions are often based on assumptions which could be incorrect. They are not backed up by fact yet treated as the truth.
Assumptions have the potential to confuse a situation, and everyone involved. For example, silence or nodding does not always mean the person agrees. They could be simply acknowledging they heard you. They might not agree yet in that moment are not ready to comment. You cannot know if what you are assuming is the truth unless you ask questions to get more information and clarification. Listen carefully and ask questions if you are not sure or need further information to form an opinion. The brain is wired to keep you safe and fulfill your core needs such as nutrition, shelter, community, pleasure, reproduction, and emotional expression. This establishes an idea of where you are, who and what is around you, and where you might encounter danger. Also known as the ‘fight or flight mode’ which is essential in times of danger - it keeps you at the first level of awareness. 
You don't need to sit still on a pillow to get many of the benefits of mindfulness, science shows. I've probably written a dozen articles over the years about the benefits of mindfulness, how it impacts the brain, and how simple it is to get started with meditation. And yet I confess I have personally never managed to keep up a consistent meditation practice.
At least I know I'm not alone. Experts reassure struggling meditation newbies that just sitting still and breathing can be way harder than it first seems. And if that doesn't work to alleviate my guilt, then I also remember this post highlighting the wisdom of Wharton professor Adam Grant and author Oliver Burkeman, arguing there are many other ways to practice mindfulness aside from classic meditation. You don't need to meditate to practice mindfulness. After being harassed for years by mindfulness's many boosters, Grant finally took to The New York Times to argue that meditation isn't for everyone. Many people, he explains, find other ways to quiet their brains, be in the present moment, and reduce their stress. Burkeman concurred in the Guardian, writing "I have a personal theory that almost everyone secretly meditates, whether they realize it or not....almost everyone pursues some activity demanding absolute presence of mind: if not mountain climbing or sailing or bike racing (where a lapse of attention might mean death), then photography or singing or recreational cookery (where a lapse of attention means you'll screw things up)." 
2. Resist unnecessary mental time travel Here’s how I think about mental strength:
Mental strength is the ability to control your mind instead of being controlled by it. For example:
So becoming mentally strong doesn’t mean you are able to exert complete control over everything that goes on between your ears. Mental strength means understanding which parts of your mind you can control and being able to do it well when it matters. For example: 
“By three methods we may learn wisdom” There is nothing new under the sun. It’s an old saying, but it’s true.
The ancient world has always been a source of wisdom and wonder. Centuries of knowledge has changed millions of lives before us and continue to inspire, guide and show us better paths for a more fulfilling life. Once every quarter, it pays to take a moment for introspection and reflect on your life. What could you change to improve your life? What habits and behaviours can you keep to do more of what’s already working? How can you improve your relationships with those around you? The process of becoming wise, healthy, and wealthy is through accumulating knowledge over time. Better wisdom can help us make the best life-changing decisions and lead a better life. Aristotle knew all about how to make the most of your life. He said that happiness is found in satisfying our basic needs like food and shelter first, but then we need to focus on people, activities, and things that fully engage us. 
Core values are personal to each individual . They can be described as your code of ethics, your fundamental principles, your standards, or personal rules. I like to refer to them as the bricks you build your foundation on. Knowing what you truly value in life, what makes you feel fulfilled and gives you a sense of meaning, connects you to your true self and is an important part of your personal development.
Core values are about YOU – not what society, the media, your education, your colleagues and friends or family deem as important, or of value, but what is important to you, what you value. Stress tends to set in when you are not treating these values with the respect they deserve. Not respecting your core values means you are not respecting your true self. In turn your self-esteem could suffer, which of course in turn de-creases the quality of your day-to-day life. When the feeling of being calm and peaceful is present, and the quality of day-to-day life is high, you feel good about yourself and who you are. Your self-esteem and self-worth benefit from this. Caroline Myss, a five-time New York Times bestselling author and internationally renowned speaker in the fields of human consciousness and mysticism says: “Being able to speak and live with the truth, your truth, means you have to become comfortable with having your power, be comfortable with all that is true about you, all that is beautiful about yourself, this is being okay with yourself.” Consider the Core Values Process I offer as a gift to yourself. The focus can be on your life, your overall life which would include your career, your career alone or your leadership values (this is a great exercise to do as a new leader or to update your existing leadership skills aligning them with your personality). Get in touch. by Suzie Doscher Photo credit: Shutterstock 
Taking care of ourselves helps us do better work, but it shouldn’t feel like work.
Well-being is having a moment. What was once considered a soft-news lifestyle topic has, thanks to our collective experience of the pandemic, moved to the center of the conversation about work and life. And as a Chief Well-Being Officer, I’m certainly glad to see this shift (even if I obviously would have preferred a different catalyst). Still, when I’m asked questions about well-being, as I often am, I’ve noticed a troubling trend. Very often, well-being becomes just another stress-inducing item on our to-do list. So as we continue to prioritize our well-being, we also need to shift our mindset away from viewing well-being as work. Because well-being isn’t a benchmark we need to hit. It’s not another guilt-inducing metric to measure ourselves by. The whole point of bringing more well-being into our lives is to lower our stress, not add to it. With that in mind, here are six ways to prevent well-being from becoming just another item on our to-do lists. 
Lessons from Rebekah Taussig on honoring and celebrating our bodies.
Self-acceptance is essential to self-care and our overall well-being. If we can’t accept ourselves, our well-being is going to suffer, regardless of how diligent we are about any other physical and mental health practices. Still, even with all the progress we’ve made in recent years on body positivity and mental health, the radical act of accepting ourselves for who we are has never been more challenging. Our society surrounds us with images of what supposedly healthy and perfect bodies look like. And of course, much of that is fueled by social media, which, in study after study, has been shown to damage our body image and self-acceptance. So how can we learn to accept ourselves and show up for ourselves in a way that nurtures our well-being? To begin to answer this question, I had the privilege of talking with Rebekah Taussig on a recent episode of Deloitte’s “WorkWell” podcast. Rebekah is a writer, teacher, and advocate, whose popular Instagram feed, @sitting_pretty, is filled with what she calls “Mini memoirs.” I was thrilled to talk to her about her new book, Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body, in which she chronicles her journey to self-acceptance with her trademark candor, humor, vulnerability, and authenticity. Rebekah has been disabled since she was 3, and got her first wheelchair at age 6. She had a fairly normal childhood, with her “resilience and scrappiness” keeping her from realizing how differently she was experiencing the world. When she got to graduate school, discovering disability studies gave her a way to begin to understand herself. “It felt like the physics of the universe were transforming in real time,” she told me. “It just changed everything for me about how I saw myself and my story and gave me language to explain things I’d never been able to express before.”  You did it. You made it out — hopefully with some shred of sanity and sense of personal self-worth. But even if those things feel unrecoverable, they aren’t. You can get them back. Maybe you’ve moved on to greener pastures. If that’s the case, well done. You’ve taken an important step towards preserving (or gaining back) your emotional and physical health. Maybe, although less likely, your boss either moved on or was fired. Most of the time, these situations don’t fix themselves, as for some reason senior leadership would rather keep a single toxic boss employed than the multiple high-quality employees who leave because of them. In either case, there’s a residual emotional and physical toll that lasts well beyond the end of the boss-employee relationship. I know; I’ve been there. In the span of just two years of reporting to a toxic boss, I went from being a high-performing, high-potential engineering leader to nearly leaving the company I’d spent 15 years at because of one single person. My boss. That’s how badly I needed to get away from her. The Zurich International School Guide to Building Mental Resilience at Home, Work and School19/11/2021
Mental resilience is the cornerstone of a successful life - but can you build it in yourself, your family and your team?
Crying every morning may sound like a terrible way to start the day, but for life coach Suzie Doscher, Class of 1974 (1970-74), tears are a vital safety valve – and a healthy response to a global pandemic. “When a friend asked me how I was coping with lockdown, I told her I regularly had a good cry,” she says. “I sometimes started the day feeling uneasy or unsure, but I know it’s important to deal with my emotions so I release them by having a cry. That is how I got myself to a place where both my feet were firmly on the ground, and then I knew that I could handle whatever came my way.” Now, more than ever, our mental health matters. We live, work and study at breakneck speed, bombarded by choice. And with technology – and the recent lockdowns – creating an ‘always on’ environment, boundaries between life and work are increasingly blurred. Clearly, the ability to build our own mental resilience, in mentally healthy work and living spaces, is crucial. None of this is news to Brigitte Eigenmann, Head of Human Resources at ZIS. “Our mental and physical health are connected,” she says. “That’s why we need to take mental health seriously.” 
A piece of simple old wisdom that’s desperately needed in the modern world
“You’re not going to believe it! You’re not going to believe it!” shouted the young man as he ran across the courtyard. “I just heard something about one of your friends!” “Whoa, slow down,” replied Socrates lifting his eyes from the scroll he was reading to face the young man. “Before you tell me the news, I’d like to give you a little test.” “A test?” the young man fired back frustrated his eagerness had been met with resistance. “What kind of test? I don’t like tests!” “Don’t worry,” Socrates smiled. “It’s not very hard. In fact, it’s quite simple. It’s called the ‘Triple-Filter Test’. And as its name implies, it consists of three questions that will hopefully help you better filter information.” “The first filter is Truth,” Socrates continued. “Are you absolutely positive that what you’re going to tell me is true?” “No, I’m not sure it’s true,” the young man responded sheepishly. “I just heard about it and I thought you should….” “Moving on,” Socrates jumped in. “Since you’re not sure whether or not what you want to tell me about my friend is true or not it’s time for the second filter which is goodness —Is the news you have about my friend something good?”
I wonder how many words have actually been written about communication. Suffice it to say, there have been a great many. I suppose it is because we haven’t cracked it yet; this ability to convey messages so that what we say is heard in the way we mean it, and conversely, what we hear is received in the way it was meant. Indeed, the road to clarity always seems to be under construction.
Even if we try to simplify our communication processes, barriers come up that can sabotage the message and render it ineffective by the time it gets to those who must act on it. There are a lot of reasons for this. Here are four that come to mind: Cultural barriers There are many factors that make up what we refer to as “culture” but to me, cultural difference is about attitudes and beliefs that come from our personal environment and experience. As such, two people could get the same message but interpret it in two entirely different ways simply because their frames of reference and language differ. 
Small things tell you a lot about a person In this article, we will talk about how to recognize subtly toxic people.
No one wants to waste time and energy around people who consistently behave in unhealthy ways and add negativity to our lives. Yet, many of us sometimes get stuck in toxic relationships that have a negative impact on our mental health and even on our self-confidence. The problem is some people may seem friendly, charming, respectful, and even emotionally mature, when we don’t know them enough. Some of their behaviors may seem inoffensive at first, while the reality is they are not, and they can actually damage relationships in the long-term. This is why it’s essential to learn to recognize these unhealthy habits. What follows are four behaviors of subtly toxic people: 
The world will put countless obstacles in your path but none will be as big as the ones you create for yourself
Self-sabotage occurs when your logical, conscious mind (the side of you that says you need to eat healthily and save money) is at odds with your subconscious mind (the side of you that stress-eats chocolate and goes on online shopping binges). The latter is your anti-self -- that critical inner voice that seems to hold you back and sabotage your efforts. Self-sabotage involves behaviors or thoughts that keep you away from what you desire most in life. It’s that internal sentiment gnawing at us, saying “you can’t do this.” This is really your subconscious trying to protect you, prevent pain and deal with deep-seated fear. But the result of self-sabotage is that we hesitate instead of seizing new challenges. We forgo our dreams and goals. In the end, we know we missed out, but we don’t understand why. So what can we do to stop the self-limiting behaviors? Here are eight steps you can start taking immediately to stop self-sabotaging your success. 
Empower yourself by not only connecting, but also aligning your life (and that includes life at work) with your core values.
In my experience finding out or rediscovering what my personal values are was one of the most important steps in my personal growth. If I think back at the person, I was before I reconnected with them… ‘a loose cannon’ comes to mind. I had lots of things in place, lots of boxes ticked but at the same time my life was not making me happy. I was not satisfied let alone had anything even remotely close to inner peace. Once I discovered what is truly important to, what nurtures me, what allows me to feel like myself and grow into my skin then my life started changing. The reason being that I felt I had a foundation to live life from. I noticed my values are the bricks to my foundation, they are what grounds me. It was so exciting to find out that these values are part of me, inside of me and always there. Living in alignment with them does not actually cost me anything. There is a ‘cost’, this comes in the form of time. I take time to nurture them, to feel strong and fully in my personal power. I feel my inner light is shining. 
A scientific study proves self-care can only take you so far.
Forget meditation apps, Tony Robbins seminars and all-inclusive wellness retreats. Happiness’ business model is pyramid-shaped. A research article in The Journal of Positive Psychology says happiness comes from “making others feel good, rather than oneself.” Very in fashion with the pyramid scheme model: you can make your first steps towards happiness on your own — read self-help, maybe do some yoga — but if you really want to make it, get your friends and relatives involved somehow. I think this is a refreshing pivot. Pyramid schemes used to be all about scammy tactics to trick people into buying over-hyped multivitamins and surface cleaners. Now it could be the model that helps us understand what makes us happier. Happiness’ secret ingredient is “relatedness,” researchers say Relatedness is a basic psychological need. Some people think if we were not restrained by laws and moral codes, society would immediately spring into a rioting rampage of rape and murder and robbery. But our brains are wired to feel good when we nurture a sense of collaboration and community. We evolved to scratch each other's backs, and given how anatomically difficult it is to do it on your own, I believe Mother Nature wanted us to figure out we need one another after all. Like in any pyramid scheme, happiness is rigged against individuality. The researchers tested it: you can’t hack relatedness by sending good vibes back to yourself. And that’s why most happiness-seeking models don’t ultimately work: they lack this sense of community. Self-help, for one, has ‘self’ in its title That should be a red flag. Although I’m not saying we should neglect ourselves. I eat healthily, meditate and exercise, get my hours of sleep and sunshine, and drink lots of water (and since that kidney stone catastrophe of 2019 I’ve been extra diligent with that last one). I don’t think we could be physically and emotionally inclined to make others feel good unless we’ve done a bare minimum of self-directed work. But you know. Self-care can only take you so far. To keep improving your happiness levels, ditch the “self” and embrace the “help.” There’s no “I” in “next level.” Can money buy happiness? Getting the millions with a B is another one of those self-centered tactics that won’t work. It’s a pity some of us will remain skeptical right up until we’re crying in our Lambo. Here’s the thing: material wealth only increases happiness as far as our basic needs go. Once those are satisfied, the Musk bucks and Buffet bills won’t make our lives any merrier. Speaking of pyramids, do you know about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Money can take you into the first floor of the pyramid, the physiological needs, and up to the second floor, the safety needs. But once there, there is no more material deprivation to relief. Money can’t buy a VIP ticket to the penthouse of that pyramid: self-transcendence. The pinnacle of human fulfilment, where we find ourselves transcending the ego and focusing on something bigger. What about going spiritual? Those who don’t know how to set up funnels to get rich may opt for detachment instead. There are plenty of legitimate reasons why trying spirituality, studying Buddhism, going monastic, and meditating your way out of the illusion of the self. But spirituality’s been capitalized into yet another product for the “Health and Wellness” aisle. And if it were the ultimate solution, I’d expect Andy Puddicombe not to come back from the Himalayas after 10 years, meditating 16 hours a day, to create a subscription-based meditation app. Some of us just crave the frenzy of the west. As for me, I’m a writer. I need to be one with everything, but through an internet connection — which I suspect is something the Himalayas are in scarce of. Philosophy can make you wiser — and sadder Tell me if a cheerful person could’ve come up with the trolley problem: A runaway train is headed towards 5 workers on a railway line. The only way to save the workers is to operate a lever that would make the train go down a side rail. Problem is, there’s another worker on that one too. So, do you leave the lever untouched and have 5 workers killed, or do you switch the lever, killing the one worker on the side rail, but saving the other 5? I get philosophy it’s meant to make us wiser, sometimes by testing our moral virtue with thought experiments. But it doesn’t work for me. I’d prefer to imagine the 6 workers and me over a barbecue. In fact, it seems that if you drift too much into philosophical self-absorption, you’re bound to become depressive about existence. All for something that, in the end, no one cares about. Or as Plato put it: “That man is wisest who, like Socrates, realizes that his wisdom is worthless.” Self-centric tactics out of the way — how do we make others feel good? Here’s how I’m doing it: I don’t try to force it. Because that would be inauthentic, right? That would be the ol’ self-centric impulse showing, trying to hack my way to greater happiness. Instead, if the opportunity to make someone else feel good presents itself naturally, I take it. Even the little things can make an impact. In one study, researchers approached people that had just park their cars, gave them a few quarters, and told them to either feed their own parking meter or the meter of a stranger. Participants showed a greater lift in happiness levels when they fed others’ meters. But again, it’s the genuine gesture, not the quarters, that made them feel good. It’s the magic of relatedness, available to everyone and everywhere. You don’t need a researcher approaching you on the street after parking your car. Just get your head out of your ass and pay attention to these opportunities. One final tip from the pyramid scheme canon Just recruit five people. You know how it goes: make five people feel good, because if they make five more people feel good, and then those make five more people feel good… It sounds like an impossibly large chain, but if you do the math, you’ll see we can repeat this cycle only 14 times. After 14 cycles, you run out of people on the planet. That shows the true, shady nature of pyramid schemes — but also, how easy it could be to spread The Good Vibes. So now you have a legitimate reason to message your aunt on Facebook, without any pressure to segue the conversation into selling her a disinfectant. Go make those five people feel good. By Loudt Darrow Photo by arash payam on Unsplash (modified by author) 
I was standing by the lake one windy morning watching the waves crash up against some rocks and the ripple effect that followed. The wave hit one area and cascaded long the others closer to where I was standing. It was beautiful, full of energy and at the same time made me realize that this can be translated into how one negative thought tends to release a series of more negative ones. This seems to happen to ‘feed’ or confirm the first one. I have found that negative thoughts hate being alone ... they look for company. In my own personal experience as well working professionally in the arena of personal growth and development, I all too often witness how this unfolds. I am not a therapist or neuroscientist so cannot speak scientifically. Having said that I have enough evidence after 16 years of working in this area to be able to say the patterns are there. It strikes me that our minds do not like to give up the negative thoughts. Our brain looks for further thoughts to confirm this 'truth'. The thought might be far from true now in your actual present-day reality, yet we treat it as absolute truth in our thinking. From what I witness these beliefs come from emotions, more often than not emotions from the past, even recent past (last job, last relationship). Our behaviour follows our thinking, so our behaviour will act upon what we think and therefore believe.  Limiting Beliefs For example: If you believe you are not very good at something chances are you will act this way. Instead of taking the approach to learn how to, or improve, you shy away from it. Of course, the very first step must be being aware of this thought pattern and the resulting behaviour. To make any changes it is vital to be aware of a pattern. If it turns out to be limiting belief that is holding you back this belief is best challenged and reframed. If is is there due to lack of clarity you know to get more clarity. Feeling grounded In order to stay calm and grounded it requires certain behaviours that feed being calm. Each person will have their own requirements. What you as an individual need to feel calm will most likely differ from someone else’s needs. Each has their own interpretation of success as well as what feeling calm and grounded means to them. Based on my own personal experience this also changes depending on our age. I know when I was 30 my focus was very different to 40. At 30 I was focused on creating my family and being a wife and mother. At 50 I noticed that feeling fulfilled was my new goal and turning 60 was fabulous as I had completely grown into my skin by then and was more than happy to focus on my core values and needs. The 'older age' goal is answering the question ‘how do I want this chapter of my life to look and feel’… This one is still work in progress so watch this space. Tips for what comes next If you find yourself lost in a negative thinking pattern regarding an issue, observe any common denominators that kick the first thought off. What sets those wheels in motion? What happens next? Observe yourself, raise your awareness to your patterns. Is it a recurring situation, a recurring interaction, an issue left unresolved, a lack of clarity? It could be a number of things. Get to know yourself to find out what exactly it is. It is worthwhile to observe what comes next. Which thoughts follow, how do you act, react, behave, or deal with it? Always remember to be patient and kind with yourself during any process of growth or change. by Suzie Doscher: Coaching for Personal Development: Life Coaching and Executive Coach, Self-Help Author Photo credit: Pexels and Shutterstock  
I remember doing a Self-Esteem exercise while I was studying to become a coach. What I loved about the Noble Manhattan Coaching training was that we had to do all work on ourselves.
Talk about furthering your own personal growth and development. How could I work with clients if I had did not know and experience all the growth myself. I loved the changes that I was making to my own behaviour patterns as I was learning how to apply them professionally. 16 years later I still believe it to be the best coach training - even if I had not become a professional coach. The benefits from doing the work for myself improved the quality of my personal and professional life no end and still does. Self-esteem evaluation Exercise Answer the following questions, giving each one a score out of 10 using the following scale: Totally agree with the statement Completely disagree
As it is out of a total possible high score of 10 you will gain an insight into where your self-esteem is at. If you want to start with some self-coaching consider these thoughts: 
1. The Present
Eckhart Tolle refers to living in the now, which means being able to see and feel what your life is in the present moment. The present-day buzzword for this is to be mindful by practicing mindfulness. Standing in a beautiful park, by a calming body of water, or attending your child’s school play or other family event, and actually seeing the trees, feeling the flow and energy of the water, enjoying the play or event while feeling joy instead of being lost in your thoughts (which are taking you elsewhere) is experiencing the now, the present moment, being mindful of that very moment. Thoughts can propel you into an entirely different location even if you are not there physically. It seems odd that we do not just naturally live in the now. After all, almost everyone would agree that the present moment, the now, is all we have. When you are able to live in the day life becomes more relaxed and enjoyable. You empower yourself by influencing what you can influence. This becomes a powerful technique to step out of stress. This is not to say you should never think of the future and plan to reach your goals and avoid pitfalls. It is more about how this is done. Keep your energy where it is needed - in the day. Examine your present-day reality and determine what is working and what is not working. Explore what you can influence and what not.
Miscommunication can happen in any relationship, whether it’s personal or professional. And when it does, it’s important that we step back and acknowledge how we can communicatemore clearly going forward. This is a topic we discuss in our book, Your Time to Thrive, where we use science, storytelling, ancient wisdom, and practical advice, to help readers improve their health, happiness, and sense of purpose.
We asked our Thrive community to share with us the words and phrases that help them communicate more effectively and mindfully. Which of these phrases will you start using? “Tell me more.” “I have learned to use appreciative inquiry to gain trust and open communication in personal and professional relationships. Phrases like, ‘Tell me more…’ or ‘What are you trying to achieve and how can I help you?’ create the feeling of inclusion and partnership to facilitate a two-way communication.” —Isabelle Bart, social entrepreneur and coach, Orange County, CA “Help me understand.” “I find that everything is more effective when presented as an offer. This is especially helpful when presenting an opposing view. For example, I’ll say, ‘I’d offer that it’s more important to hire based on who is the best fit for the team than on experience. The reason is….’ I’ve also found that when people are nervous to speak in meetings or presentations, this simple opening helps because offering feels better than trying to prove yourself.” —Pam Reece, leadership and wellness consultant, New York, N.Y. “Do you want me to simply listen?” “To encourage empathy and clarity in my conversations, I often find myself asking, ‘Can I share something about that with you or did you just want me to listen?’ Sometimes, people just want to be heard and are not looking for feedback, so this helps to gauge if they would like another perspective or not, and leaves the person feeling heard and cared for either way.” —Julie Demsey, hypnotherapist, coach, author, Sydney, Australia |
Raise your self-awareness with this:
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