Get moving

Once again in a coaching session this morning I've been reminded of the many benefits of moving .... in this case it was moving in the sense of walking fast enough to feel breathless for ten minutes. The person said that even after such a short time ideas she felt more creative and able to plan the next step of her personal journey.

In another coaching session recently I was asking about body language and how the person sat when feeling stuck and demoralised. It seemed that when he experimented with changing his position he began to feel less stuck and when he adopted what to him felt like riduculous positions he began to see a way back to some optimism. Movement helped when words didn't

Personally I find 45 minutes of aqua aerobics liberating; the movement in the water, the music and the childlike quality of splashing about and the deep breathing mean I leave the pool full of new ideas, even when I'm tired.

So from the coaching point of view if talking isn't opening up a way forward or bringing energy into your thinking; get moving

Is it work/life balance or life/work balance?

I've been responding to several messages about courses and books and on line seminars and the like recently and notice that many have work/life balance as their theme.

Does that seem the right way round to you ? Are we being invited to balance our working lives first and then consider everything else as an after thought ? As many of these inviations are offered by employers seeking to enhance the productivity of their workforce I think that is how they see it. Put work first and everything else will fall into place.

Well no, my experience as a coach says no that's the wrong way around.

I think we need to have a very clear picture of our life and how we'd like it to be first. How do we want to spend our time, how do we plan to be healthy in mind, body and spirit ? Once we've got that picture clear we can begin to make sure our work contributes to that picture as much as possible.

I doubt that anyone has ways of earning their living which always, always contribute positively to their lives but the more we can aim for that, the better we'll feel about ourselves and the better we feel the more productive we'll be.

So I think we're all aiming for life/work balance myself.

Back from a coaching break

Even coaches need to take a break now and then.

If you want to know more about the ways in which I coach, why not have a look at www.coachingatthenextlevel.biz ........................................... or even read the feature recently published in the Sunderland Echo a local paper here in the north east of England.

I was interested by the small number of people who saw the article and then stopped me in my local shop or swimming pool to say something like "So you're a therapist" ... which of course isn't true. Coaching and some forms of therapy do have many features in common but when I first coach someone I am interested in where you are today and where you want to get to sooner and later. Why you feel stuck is less interesting because unless there's a big unhealed hurt it doesn't matter how you got here what matters is moving forward. However if there is a big unhealed hurt its possible the person would be better served working with a therapist who is trained to enable them to heal that hurt.

And did I have a good break ? Yes thank you, I did traveling by bus and train across southern Spain was brilliant