April 2020 – 4PositiveGrowth

The Power of Goals

Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?

Did you know that only around 3% of us actually have our goals written down.

Goals improve your chances of success

Research suggests that the 3% who have written down goals are on average 30 times more successful than those who have no written goals. A separate study by Harvard University also found that the 3% who had written down goals were earning 10 times as much as the rest of the group within 10 years.

Goals focus effort in a consistent direction

Success means very different things to all of us and goals are not only hugely valuable in helping us achieve the outcome we want, with lazer focus, they are also incredibly valuable in helping us navigate the journey there too.

Goals improve motivation and satisfaction

Well defined goals that are holistic and that are linked to our highest values, help us naviagte the ups and downs of life, with clarity and resilience. Goals hold incredible pulling power that can help us through and out the other side of the greatest challenges, failures and defeats that life throws at us. Taking time to understand why a goal is important to you, to understand the motivation behind to goal, unlocks the real pulling power of a goal.

In Westernised cultures, we often split goals into ‘career’ and ‘retirement’ or ‘working life’ and ‘home life’. By taking a more holistic approach to goal setting, such as the Japanese ‘Ikigai’ approach, we focus more on our purpose in life and how all other aspects of life link to this purpose.

Looking back on my own journey, I now see that I would set very clear goals for my career but I hadn’t linked these to my life goals or life purpose. Once I’d taken the time to see ‘the bigger picture’, a more holistic approach, I could better understand why I was making great progress against certain goals and less so against others. Some were in conflict with my true values and my purpose in life and so, the pulling power, commitment and motivation to take action towards these goals just wasn’t as strong.

If you’d like to increase the pulling power of your goals, I’m currently delivering the MENS SANA coaching programme online. MENS SANA is Latin for ‘Healthy Mind’ and the first session in the programme is a powerful goal setting session where I coach you through the value of goal setting, to creating powerful, effective, holistic goals and help you take action on these.

Learn more about MENS SANA and enjoy a complimentary introduction to the programme by joining me for ‘HOW TO BEAT PROCRASTINATION TO IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY’. Email me today for your invitation to the next available session.

The goal setting session was great, especially the part called the 5 Why’s. It really made me think about my goals and why they were important to me. This process gave me a light-bulb moment when I discovered the real motivation for my goals which now feel easier to achieve, because I’ve got real clarity about why I want to achieve them. Real eye-opener for me!
Jude Liddle, Marketing Manager

Learn more about how we can help you unlock and maximise your potential for positive growth at 4PositiveGrowth

April 28, 2020/0 Comments/by Caroline Gavin

Growth for You

Coaching – Just a few of the benefits!

Coaching has positively impacted my life and I am 100% confident it can do the same for you.

Working for a multinational company, receiving the best training available, I was wondering why I wasn’t making the progress I wanted to, towards my career and life goals. Equally, as a mum, I was struggling to find the balance I wanted for my family.

Then I found coaching. I started being coached and this transformed my life. It helped me uncover my limiting beliefs, helped me find the balance I was trying to achieve and, helped me achieve goals and ambitions I wouldn’t have dreamed of, including running my own business as a Professional Personal Life Coach and Corporate & Executive Coach.

Coaching is all about YOU. No goal, journey or outcome is the same. How it helps you will be up to you. You might want to work on improving your physical or mental health, your career, relationships or improve your life balance.

Whatever you want to work on, some of the universal benefits of coaching are:

Having A Life Coach Makes You More Accountable. You become more accountable to follow through on whatever you’re procrastinating on or stopping yourself from doing.

Having A Life Coach Saves You Time And Gets You Faster Results. With just 24 hours in a day, how we use them can make a dramatic difference to how we feel that the end of the day. Instead of using old maps to help you navigate and plan your day, a coach can help you create your very own super-efficient GPS system! Reach your goals and life ambitions faster.

Having A Life Coach Gives You A Stronger Sense Of Belief And Self-Confidence. There are so many ways that we limit and hold ourselves back. There are things that we want to do, but often aren’t doing simply because we don’t have the belief or confidence in ourselves. A coach helps you work with those beliefs, helps you realize what you are truly capable of; building a stronger, more confident, positive and resilient you.

Did you know? A ‘belief’ is just a thought you think over and over again, so why not start thinking positive thoughts over and over again. It takes the same effort! If we tell ourselves we can do something, we believe it. If we tell ourselves we can’t do something, we believe that, too. So if we want better results in life, we first need to change our thoughts and our beliefs.

Did you know? The brain will look to find the answer to the question you ask it. So, instead of asking ‘Why can’t I make this work?’ (which asks your brain to look for the reasons you can’t do it) ask yourself; ‘How can I make this work?’ or ‘How many ways of solving this problem can I think of?’. Now you are looking for positive solutions!

“I was initially quite apprehensive about undertaking coaching after a bad experience of coaching in a former workplace. However, Caroline’s approach was totally different and was very holistic and totally non-judgmental. She used a range of really helpful tools to draw out the importance of many different elements in my life which then provided much greater clarity on where to focus my energies to improve things at work and at home and how those things were inter-dependent. The emphasis was “what is right for me and how can I achieve that” rather than “where/what do I think I should be and how do I get there”. The approach was very empowering and left me with a new way of thinking about things that I can use every day to be the best version of me! I can’t recommend this highly enough.” Mrs U Callaghan, University of Liverpool

Get in touch with me, Caroline at 4PositiveGrowth to talk about you and how coaching can help you get to where you want to be.

April 24, 2020/0 Comments/by Caroline Gavin

General

Get unstuck – name the emotion

If you are feeling overwhelmed by emotions that are not resourceful to you, that are stopping you being at your best, take a moment to name the emotion you are feeling. This changes the brain activation levels, lowering the emotions in the amygdala and raising the prefrontal cortex.

Now that really is a very valuable piece of Emotional Intelligence wisdom for these rapidly changing and challenging times! Daniel Goleman* shared this ‘nugget’ in his recent WBECS webinar – Training the Brain: The Key to Developing EI.

The prefrontal cortex is the brain’s executive centre.

It’s the part that takes in information, understands it and responds. It’s the part of the brain that makes good decisions, strategizes and learns.

The amygdala is the brain’s trigger for emergencies and crises.

In the face of present challenges, more and more executives and leaders are finding they’re in emergency mode, in the amygdala. Also known as fight or flight mode, it captures the prefrontal cortex, fixating attention on what it thinks the emergency is, narrowing the range of choices, which causes us to make bad decisions.

Right now, it’s more important than ever for us to be able to manage our emotional ‘state’, so we can be our most resourceful self, at home and at work (one of the same for many, and that’s one of the challenges!)

According to Daniel Goleman, a recent global study found that the most important skills leaders need today are emotional intelligence, leading teams, developing people, influence, relationship management and leading change.

It’s worth noting that all of these come down to Emotional Intelligence (EI).

Working with a coach can be indispensable for developing EI and raising Self-Awareness; vital to good decision making, knowing what you’re feeling, knowing why you’re feeling it and knowing how it impacts your performance. These can help you control how you choose to respond to people, situations, your own thoughts and emotions.

Vital skills for you to be at your best, to help yourself and those around you, today and into the future.

If you’d like to work on developing your EI or raising your self-awareness or, would value coaching support for you and your team, in adjusting to the new world, I’d love to hear from you caroline@4positivegrowth.co.uk . I offer Personal Performance and Team Coaching as well as a range of online coaching sessions, to support personal growth, development and wellbeing.

Wishing you health, Caroline @4PositiveGrowth

Thanks to Daniel Goleman for sharing his insights as part of the World Business & Executive Coach Summit 2019 * Daniel Goleman has been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize and received the Lifetime Career Award from the American Psychological Association Award. He was named the 2011 and 2013 Top Business Guru by Accenture Institute for Strategic Change for his 1998 article “What Makes a Leader?” is one of the two most requested reprints in the history of Harvard. The Wall Street Journal named him one of the Top 10 Most Influential Business Thinkers.

April 17, 2020/0 Comments/by Mark Pollard