by Suzie Doscher - Executive and Life Coach for Personal Development in Switzerland

To reach your potential as well as feel confident, strong, motivated, energetic and content in the course of your life, having Life Skills is essential. They are the “software” you acquire along the way. You are born with the “hardware”; your body. Your behaviour comes under the heading “software” because this can be changed, improved, modified, extended or even deleted if necessary.

Many of these Life Skills are received in the home and at school while growing up, others you learn later in your development, taught by “the school of life”, friends, colleagues, courses, books, teachers, trainers, and coaches. Experiences, both positive and negative ones, are wonderful opportunities to learn from and grow.

What makes one person successful while others keep struggling? Everybody goes through difficult phases, has obstacles to overcome and disappointments to heal. This cannot be avoided. How you cope with all of these is the key to making your life a success.

Life Skills offer support with how you handle your life. They can be defined as a group of cognitive and personal abilities that enhance your capability to lead a life in which you reach your potential. 
Every person has strengths and weaknesses; getting to know them is important in the process of finding out “who” you are and therefore “what” you want. Not everybody has the same dream. 
You should not judge others but find your way forward based on your own values. The success of some people is not a matter of luck; they will have learned how to manage their life, and they will have acquired the “software”. 
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Understanding that life is about change, which is inevitable, is one of the first steps on this ladder to the top! Your personal worth will benefit knowing you have the necessary skills in life to face everything that comes your way with confidence.


an excerpt from BALANCE - A Practical Handbook for Life's Difficult Moments by Suzie Doscher

Available in Paperback, on Kindle or as an Audiobook (Audible or iTunes)

By Carina Bonasera, Student Editorial Fellow

Human beings are hardwired to be social creatures. We are built to crave contact with other people and thrive when surrounded by friends who support and care for us. In fact, relationships can actually help you live a longer, happier life.
With the average full-time American employee spending about 43 hours per weekat work, your job is one of the best places to get the recommended six hours per day (yes, six hours!) of social contact. Unfortunately, it’s also the place where many people tend to fall short in making friends.
When Gallup surveyed more than 15 million employees around the world, less than a third reported having a best friend at work — meaning that about 70 percent are missing out on the multitude of benefits that work friendships can bring.

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By Moran Cerf
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Breathing is traditionally thought of as an automatic process driven by the brainstem—the part of the brain controlling such life-sustaining functions as heartbeat and sleeping patterns. But new and unique research, involving recordings made directly from within the brains of humans undergoing neurosurgery, shows that breathing can also change your brain.

Simply put, changes in breathing—for example, breathing at different paces or paying careful attention to the breaths—were shown to engage different parts of the brain.

Humans’ ability to control and regulate their brain is unique: e.g., controlling emotions, deciding to stay awake despite being tired, or suppressing thoughts. These abilities are not trivial, nor do ...

​By Michael Coren 

Life coaches’ careers are taking off. The occupation, which hardly existed a few years ago, has now become indispensable to the careers of everyone from Oprah Winfrey and members of the (formerly wildly dysfunctional) Metallica, to average professionals trying to improve their lot.
While the US Bureau of Labor Statistics does not collect data on life coaches just yet (it groups them with other types of trainers and counselors), the International Coach Federation estimates (pdf, p. 8) that there are now 17,500 coaches (outside of sports) working in North America alone as of 2015. Working with a mix of business and private clients, they earned an average income of $61,900—nearly twice the US median annual wage.
Since the late 1980s, Google’s Ngram index shows the mention of life coaches growing exponentially.

Google Ngram estimate of frequency of “life coach” in books scanned by Google
Life coaches help their clients identify goals, remove barriers, and encourage regular progress for days or years. Most clients, according to the ICF (pdf), are managers who use coaches to help them in their career, but the number of clients using coaches in their personal life is growing as well.  

Early in the The Path Made Clear, the media mogul describes the moment she discovered her purpose. It was August, 1978, and she was working as a news anchor and reporter on People Are Talking, a Baltimore talk show—but it didn't feel right. "I knew I was not my authentic self," she writes. "And my bosses certainly made no secret of their feelings. They told me I was the wrong color, the wrong size, and that I showed too much emotion." ​