How to get through the week

Do you make things happen or wonder what happened?

Steve Phillip's How to get through the week blog — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:36:02 +0000

I remember once being asked – “are you operating in cause or affect mode?” I must admit I did question if this person was speaking a foreign language – what did he mean?

He explained that people approach life in one of two ways they either cause things to happen and therefore, control the outcomes (positive or otherwise) or their behaviour is mostly governed by what happens to them – affect mode. Which of these two groups do you think have a more positive outlook on life and which are the ones who will usually blame their bad luck on circumstances or other people?

I thought about his question and asked if he could provide a specific example, so he explained – “Just the other day I heard a close friend of mine say ‘that person made me feel so angry’ to which I replied how does that person make you feel angry? She went on to explain how the person in question was continually complaining about their circumstances in life and the more they went on about it the more she became angry, in fact she was finding it increasingly difficult to remove these feelings of anger”

I still wasn’t sure I fully understood his point so he went on to explain. “My friend’s anger had little to do with what had been said to her, it was more about how she chose to react to what had been said”. So, I replied, ‘what you’re saying is that your friend chose to feel angry, when she could have simply ignored the individual’s moaning behaviour?’ “Precisely” was the response I received right back.

I know this is a simple example but let me ask you, what events happened to you last week, whether it was an article on the news; a comment from a colleague; someone cutting you up whilst you were driving; an email you didn’t like the tone of, how did any of those experiences shape the rest of your day?

You see in our lives things are going to happen to us, we can’t really stop them doing so, however, what we can do is control how we respond to what happens to us and choose either to let the issue affect our behaviour in a negative way or we can choose a more positive pathway.

Those who live by responding more positively to negative events live by the power of cause and do not spend their lives reacting to what happens to them.

Whatever challenges you face this week, how will you choose to react – will you be governed by what happens or choose to cause an outcome you can control?

Have a great week and remember to be the best you that you can be 100% of the time.

Best wishes

Steve

07879 628708 steve@linked2success.co.uk

I provide personal coaching to suit personal budgets for anyone who wants to get more out of life, business or their career

Just how far are you prepared to go?

Steve Phillip's How to get through the week blog — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:48:33 +0000

Last week, my business partner and I remarked on how things are changing in our business. Opportunities are now being drawn to us rather than us having to continually push to make them happen.

So what has changed, are we being more lucky? No, I don’t believe so – without question I believe the results we are experiencing now have come from the past two and half years of total commitment to a vision we both totally believed in and never stopped pursuing.

Step by step, we have kept going, no matter what challenges have come our way and there have been many and now we’re seeing the fruit of efforts turn into our vision..at last!

So, how long would you hang in there to follow your dream, 2 years, 2 months, 2 weeks, less time than this or more? When is enough, truly enough and at what point do you decide you can no longer continue? How many barriers are too many, how much rejection is too much and when do you decide it’s time to quit and accept a settle for life?

Achieving meaningful goals in life, ones that really matter to you, are rarely ever easy to attain. The journey can often be painful, you’ll feel tired and at times exhausted, sick to the pit of your stomach, frightened and confused but if you have a dream, continue to live your life by the right values and you remain authentic and true to yourself then victory must surely come.

Therefore, my question this week is this – Is it better to live a settle for life or strive for a dream that if you reach it would provide you with more fulfillment and happiness than you could possibly imagine, knowing also that you may never reach your goal but at least you knew you’d tried?

Have a great week and remember to be the best you that you can be 100% of the time.

Best wishes

Steve

07879 628708 steve@linked2success.co.uk

I provide personal coaching to suit personal budgets for anyone who wants to get more out of life, business or their career

Are you beaten before you even start?

Steve Phillip's How to get through the week blog — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:43:57 +0000

What are you saying when you talk to others and more importantly what are you saying when you speak with yourself? Are you talking yourself into succeeding or instead admitting defeat before you even begin?

This week, I received a call from a business contact who is clearly struggling with finding sufficient work at the moment and the more the conversation went on the more he explained how bad the economy was and how it was going to take a long time to recover. When I explained that my business was having a great start to 2012, he batted this comment straight back at me by saying ‘well that’s great, let’s just hope it continues that way and that things don’t tail off’.

Eventually it came to a point in our conversation, where I had to step in and tell this person, quite clearly: ‘look we have a choice, we can complain about how bad things are or we can make sure that we try to be the very best we can be at what we do!’

To me it’s simple, as one solitary individual we cannot alter the state of the economy. In fact there are many things we cannot change and usually this includes the behaviour and attitudes of others. What we can do however, is ensure that we are a great role model for others and in turn, hope that our behaviour has a positive influence on their attitudes too. If not, then we are almost certain to end up beaten before we have even started.

Have a great week and remember to be the best that you can be.

Best wishes

Steve

07879 628708 steve@linked2success.co.uk

I provide personal coaching to suit personal budgets for anyone who wants to get more out of life, business or their career

If you want it to be massive then think bigger

Steve Phillip's How to get through the week blog — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 21:27:23 +0000

So, what was your new year’s resolution? Was it big enough to scare you into action or even make you run in the opposite direction or was it so insignificant that you probably won’t be bothered to even give it a go and why should it matter?

If your resolution wasn’t big enough to scare you then you’ll probably fall into the 90% or more of the population who, come December 31^st at 11.59pm, had great intentions, fuelled by the emotion of the moment or fuelled by a spirit of another sort only to wake up the following morning to continue the new year as they left the old one, treading the path of an ok life whilst inside secretly wishing they could do more with their lives.

A life of any significance doesn’t come to you, you have to go and find it and although the path won’t always be easy and it may take the occasionally alternative route, if you’re sure about what the end of the road looks like and you’re prepared to complete the journey then you will surely achieve something much bigger, more worthwhile and much more satisfying than the 90%, who simply engage in wishful thinking, will ever achieve.

Have a great 2012 and remember to be the best that you can be.

Best wishes

Steve

07879 628708 steve@linked2success.co.uk

I provide personal coaching to suit personal budgets for anyone who wants to get more out of life, business or their career

Did it turn out as you’d hoped?

Steve Phillip's How to get through the week blog — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:46:23 +0000

As 2011 comes to an end and many of us enjoy the privilege of eating, laughing and spending time with family and loved ones, I wonder, during those quieter moments in the days ahead, how you’ll reflect on your year?

Has 2011 been the year you hoped it would be or was the issue that you hoped it would be great?

When you look back on what action you took to make things happen was the reality that you didn’t plan to succeed, you missed opportunities because you weren’t brave enough, you listened to others who questioned or laughed at your aspirations and it became easier to put them back on the shelf for another year?

As a number of people, close to me know, recent years have been a challenge at times for me and yet I never let that stop me from believing in myself, even though there were one or two shaky moments.

I stuck to the plan, remained patient, maintained a vision of where I wanted to be and what I wanted to achieve. And Now? Well, my life is finally starting to become what I always hoped it would be both personally and in business.

2012 promises to be a great year for me but only if I continue to live by the values I hold dear to me which are never, ever quit and always try your best to treat others as you would hope to be treated yourself.

In wishing you all a very happy Christmas and a generous new year, I’ll leave you with a poem that has been somewhat of a guiding light for me for many years, I hope it strikes a chord with anyone that needs it to:-

When things go wrong as they sometimes will
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile but you have to sigh
When life is pressing you down a bit
Rest if you must but never quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.

Stick to your task though the pace seems slow
You may succeed with one more blow
Success is failure turned inside out
The silver tints are the clouds of doubt
And you never can tell how close you are
And maybe near when it seems so far

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit
It’s when things seem worst
That you mustn’t quit.

Happy Christmas all.

Best wishes

Steve

07879 628708 steve@linked2success.co.uk

I provide personal coaching to suit personal budgets for anyone who wants to get more out of life, business or their career

Are you a positive force or a negative one?

Steve Phillip's How to get through the week blog — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:08:55 +0000

Throughout my coaching career I have worked with many people who have been struggling to cope with difficult challenges in their lives and particularly during these worrying recessionary times it is difficult to keep our motivation levels high.

Life’s challenges can cause us to view life in a way we wouldn’t always do and often this can affect the way we communicate with people to the extent that sometimes we can be less than inspiring toward others.

So my message this week is a simple one, irrespective of whatever personal challenges you might be going through, are you an up-lifter of others or do you seek to find fault?

When feeling down ourselves, it is easy to catch people doing something wrong and then criticize them, it much more difficult to recognise when someone has done something right and praise or encourage them.

Such behavior can be divisive, destroy relationships and friendships and ultimately no-one ends up feeling good.

Giving is an act that provides as much benefit to the giver as it does to the recipient, so if you’re feeling down or feeling that the world is against you then my advice is dig deep and give of yourself some more, give love, even if it is not given in return, work harder, even if you feel you are not being appreciated enough and if you want more friendships then make the effort to make more friends.

Giving of yourself requires effort but the personal rewards and level of satisfaction can be immense.

Have a great week and remember to be the best you that you can be 100% of the time.

Best wishes

Steve

07879 628708 steve@linked2success.co.uk

I provide personal coaching to suit personal budgets for anyone who wants to get more out of life, business or their career

What will you have really achieved by Friday?

Steve Phillip's How to get through the week blog — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 08:32:36 +0000

What is your reason for going to work this week and how will you know, when it gets to Friday, if you’ve achieved your aim? For many people, getting back to work today will be just like hopping back on the treadmill, the same one they hopped off last Friday.

Most of us seek two burning needs from our jobs, our businesses or our lives. One of those needs is to feel respected for who we are and what we do, the other is to feel fulfilled, a sense that we have accomplished something that is worthwhile and makes us feel good.

So, I would ask you to consider, before you begin your regular weekly routine again today, what one thing would you like to accomplish this week, either in business or personally that when you reach Friday tea time, would provide you with that sense of accomplishment? Write it down now and keep it in front of you each day.

Remember whatever you focus on enough you will undoubtedly achieve.

Be the best you that you can be 100% of the time.

Have a great week

Best wishes

Steve

07879 628708 steve@linked2success.co.uk

I provide personal coaching to suit personal budgets for anyone who wants to get more out of life, business or their career

Think before you respond

Steve Phillip's How to get through the week blog — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:21:02 +0000

Sometimes we react on impulse to situations and circumstances and often we later regret our actions. What is it that makes us respond to certain situations with such a knee jerk reaction?

Often our emotions (our defense mechanism) cause us to respond immediately to protect ourselves – sometimes our response will protect us from physical harm and on other occasions our reaction is designed to simply save face.

Consider this fact – You cannot recover the following:

The stone after the throw

The occasion after the loss

The time after it has gone

The word after it has been said

A hasty reaction can create a lifetime of pain, so my message this week is whatever happens to you today, tomorrow, this week and beyond – take just one moment to reflect and ask this simple question – What is it that is upsetting me about this situation and if I was to look back 20 years from now, how much would it matter anyway?

Have a great week and remember to be the best you that you can be 100% of the time

Best wishes

Steve

07879 628708 steve@linked2success.co.uk

I provide personal coaching to suit personal budgets for anyone who wants to get more out of life, business or their career

Could you give unconditionally?

Steve Phillip's How to get through the week blog — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 19:38:25 +0000

Sometimes it’s easy to get so wrapped up in our own worlds that our busy schedules, our fears and concerns, the outside pressures and demands of people can often make us turn inward and forget that others are also experiencing similar trials and tribulations. These challenges can often mean that when we then come across someone in need, our own issues and problems make it that much harder to give of ourselves, unconditionally.

So, this week’s message is to ask you if there is someone out there that you have neglected lately, someone who needs a little bit of time from you, a supporting gesture to pick them up and to let them know that you care, some words of encouragement that don’t involve talking about yourself but instead the other person sees that you are totally committed to listening.

Giving of yourself, when it counts, I am convinced, provides much more personal satisfaction and fulfillment than any business objective or personal goal you have set for this week. And with that in mind, I received this wonderful true story from my brother-in-law this weekend, which sums up this week’s Inspiration point message perfectly.

True Story

‘ Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare & serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood

transfusion from her 5-year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her
little brother, and asked the little boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister.

I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, “Yes I’ll do it if it will save her.” As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the colour returning to her cheeks. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, “Will I start to die right away”.

Being young, the little boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his sister all of his blood in order to save her.’

Have a great week and remember to be the best you that you can be 100% of the time

Best wishes

Steve

07879 628708 steve@linked2success.co.uk

I provide personal coaching to suit personal budgets for anyone who wants to get more out of life, business or their career

Are you truly grateful for what you have?

Steve Phillip's How to get through the week blog — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 19:06:31 +0000

We live in a world where we’re all trying to better of ourselves, whether that’s through earning more money, looking more attractive, become more healthy or confident, having more friends or achieving more physically, many of us seem to be constantly wanting and expecting more from this life but what happens when we don’t get what we desire?

Almost every day I witness people bemoaning what they don’t have, I know I’ve found myself doing just that at times and yet if we were to just stop for 5 minutes each day and consider what we do have then I believe we’d feel such euphoria that we’d rarely find the capacity to complain ever again.

Let me explain what I mean.

Just for a moment, wherever you are and if you can find a mirror better still , take a look at yourself and ask the following questions:

Am I blind? Or do I have eyes to see, with their 100 million receptors that enable me to witness the sun rise and the smiles of others and the faces of my loved ones?
Am I deaf? Or do the 24 thousand fibres in each of my ears allow me to hear the laughter of others or the wind blowing through the trees?
Am I mute? Or do I have the ability to speak and offer words of encouragement to others, whispers of love to those I care about?
Am I paralyzed? Or do the 500 muscles, 200 bones and the 7 miles of nerve fibre allow me the ability, if not to run anymore, at least to get around with relative ease and maybe walk in a forest or up a hill?
Am I feeble of mind? Or do I have the ability to think through my challenges, in the calm light of day and choose better solutions for my future?
Am I unloved or unloving? Or do I have people who care about me, maybe more than I care about myself sometimes?

Approximately 6000 people will commit suicide in the UK alone this year and although I appreciate that some will be suffering from illnesses, including severe depression, there will be others who simply forgot to appreciate how lucky they really are.

Count your blessings, recognise how much you have going for you and enjoy today’s fantastic sunshine, for it might snow again tomorrow!

Have a great week and remember to be the best you that you can be 100% of the time.

Best wishes

Steve

t: 07879 628708 steve@linked2success.co.uk

I provide personal coaching to suit personal budgets for anyone who wants to get more out of life, business or their career