WHAT DOES MAKING A MISTAKE MEAN TO YOU? Success doesn’t mean you always succeed and never fail. It means you learn from every experience and make every experience work for you in some way. Give yourself permission to make mistakes. If we attempt to avoid mistakes we avoid what we need to learn, if we avoid what we need to learn we avoid personal growth. If you have the belief that you cannot experience failure, it gives you much more freedom to be willing to play, explore, learn and grow. Everything that happens is simply feedback, it’s a means of monitoring our behaviour, attitude, actions, to make finer distinctions and do it differently next time. Most of us see an error, every mistake as emotional baggage, a failure. It reflects badly on us. Are you beating yourself up with negative self talk - I am hopeless, why me, I cant do it – can you begin to imagine what that does to your confidence? How about more supportive questions, ones that are really going to stretch you and give y...

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Life is so precious; we take it for granted sometimes and live each week just like any other. We get into a routine and mentally cross out the calendar as each day goes by. For those who work for somebody else this is a real significance as you approach the end of the working week and count down until Friday afternoon. We also take our health for granted, thinking it will always be there for us, and when we have a health challenge then we hit a brick wall and wonder ‘why me?’ Most of us fall into the victim mode and become reactive at what life throws us. This is like we are against the world in the boxing ring and we are loosing the battle. As our emotions run high and we cannot see clearly as we are in the bubble of our drama. The power is in turning this around and owning your health issue, researching options, becoming the investigator and the observer in our situation. I have gone through this cycle and it is amazing the self- growth you get from coming out the other side. Beca...

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  Pay attention and be aware of the type of questions that you find yourself using. The questions that you ask yourself can either be helpful or detrimental. It is important to focus on asking helping questions. It is unfortunate that the majority of people unwittingly ask themselves questions that keep them stuck in life’s challenges. They ask themselves questions that dwell on the problem, lay blame and reinforce negatives. I term them ‘Stuck’ questions because they don’t allow you to move forward and overcome the challenges. Have you ever asked yourself these types of questions? “Why does this always happen to me?” “Why can’t I do anything right?” “What is wrong with me?” “Who is to blame for this?” “Why doesn’t anybody like me?” I’m sure you have. We are all guilty of asking ourselves these types of questions. The problem occurs for us when we spend most of our time asking these types of questions. You really do not want the answers to t...

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Don’t you just love it when you still learn something new about your partner/husband, even though you’ve been together for so long! The other day I was having a conversation with my other half about friendship and our respective circle of friends (with particular reference to why he regards certain school friends as more “my friends” and not “his friends”.) The fact that we have both known them equally for 15 years doesn’t sway him to my rationale that they are “our friends”. As far as he is concerned his circle is full at the moment... We always say we need to get out of our comfort zone (and he would be the first to agree that that is an area that he could work on) but sometimes we also need to pull back on ourselves and be realistic. His reason for not taking on “more friends” - he can’t even look after the ones he’s got! Why should he stretch himself to the point where he can’t maintain a decent friendship with anyone? I’m using the analogy of friendship for shock value (for the ...

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With modern society we are becoming more flexible to change, we reinvent our wardrobes to suit the occasion, we renovate our homes with the newest exotic home wares and we even change careers to suit our lifestyles. Change is everywhere, if you don’t like it you get left behind. It is that simple. Life changes when we see that the old way will not cut it anymore, we need to think ahead and plan our lives being proactive in approach. Life changes can be forecasted or we can be surprised, either way we adapt to our new circumstances. Often times people see this in a reactive way and their defenses go up, there is resistance and they say ‘”I don’t see that working, why change it?”. Life has surprises no matter how well we organize and plan it. I heard a story of this wonderful man who had a one night stand. The lady he was with got pregnant and he left his girlfriend which he adored, to be with the mother of his child. They got married and he has regretted it ever since. Eventually the...

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In 2005 I was in pieces. I was shattered by a relationship break down. The path ahead was no longer clear, and I was full of self-doubt. It was at this point that I turned inwards, and my journey of spiritual discovery began. What I found was my Inner Essence through self development. It enabled me to recognise the power and strength at the core of my being. I was able to unlock my hidden potential. Along the way I was assisted by spiritual guides, angels and ascended masters. Shared experiences with friends moulded who I became. Like the caterpillar, after metamorphosis, I emerged a beautiful butterfly. So how can you discover your Inner Essence? I would like to share with you seven techniques which will help you on your own spiritual journey of enlightenment. Revisit painful experiences. Do you feel angry about a relationship break down? Do you resent the promotion of a work colleague? Are you feeling guilty about the way you treated a family member? To move on yo...

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Back in April I attended the James Redfield seminar on his Celestine Prophecy books and underlying philosophies. James led us through the story of his life and how he came to be where he is now, his psychology background with troubled kids was fascinating in its own right, however it was his in-depth discussion on the insights that we were all there for. And he did not let us down. Although I’d read the books before it wasn’t until I heard him speak his words that I could truly understand their meanings and the bigger picture of their implications. In addition to the actual insights (below), he raised some very interesting points: What is your truth to tell? If it’s not immediately obvious, make it up. It will evolve to the truth. Ask yourself why you have gone through all of your life’s preparations (look at your friends, family, teachers, jobs, experiences). Wherever you are now is perfect… The way you know you’re on the right path is...

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At an altitude of 37,000 feet, I watched with concern as the burly woman emerged from the lavatory, she was distressed and in great pain. Inching forward slowly, gripping the hand rail, her patient husband waited to support and escort her to her seat. Noticing the state she was in, I asked if there was anything I could do to assist her….’Oh my dear’, she retorted ‘I just want to get on the ground, I am absolutely terrified of flying’. As we chatted further, I took note of the language she used, what she focused on and the physical signs of the debilitating state she was in. ‘I wish I could get over it - Now that the kids are grown, I really want to travel with my husband and see all the places we had planned to see’. About a month before this, I attended a launch party for a successful Australian business magazine. The magazines’ young founder was asked how fear obstructed his progress in getting the magazine up and running. With ease and certainty he answered ‘The more I stumbled, th...

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Often times we go through life focusing on one or two areas of our lives, for some it is career and family, for others its career and finances. Some lean more towards, freedom and choice. Nowadays you see more and more focusing on health and balance. Which one are you? When I was single it was definitely the health, career and finances person, then this shifted towards health, relationships and career. Nowadays these 3 areas dominate my world. I know when I only focused on career for example my health suffered as I didn’t give myself ‘me’ time to recharge and get that work life balance. So if you do not pay attention in one area in your life you do pay with pain. Absolutely. Some people think that they will always have the same state of health, so they take it for granted, they focus on being the provider and the security for the family, yet their health is important too. Without health there is nada! I know too many individuals like this, they have great work ethics yet, struggle w...

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  Too many times we judge and blame ourselves or others rather than seek to understand why we or they think or behave in certain ways. Judging and blaming keeps us stuck and does not allow us to progress in a positive direction. It just keeps us going around in vicious circles. A lack of understanding in our life creates anger, frustration, heartache, stress, anxiety and negative experiences. If you take the time to understand yourself and others it will improve the quality of your life. This understanding allows us to become more aware of why we and others think and behave in the manner that we do and provides us with an opportunity to adjust our thoughts and behaviours as required. For instance, we all have personalities that will influence our thoughts and behaviours. My personality style is Stable/Steady. Approximately 65% of the population falls into this category of personality. The greatest fear of a Stable/Steady personality type is loss of security and one of thei...

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