Misty morning - pic courtesy of www.tvftdo.com

It’s week three of my 30 Day Blog Challenge, I have to say it’s turned into a bit more of a challenge than I expected.  Problem is the daily inspirational emails to prod my blogging mind and help me create this electronic tome, have stopped arriving.  Nikki Pilkington, who has been supplying the emails has been having some technical problems with her website and I suspect the problem lies there.  At first it was good because it gave me chance to catch up with a backlog, but now I’m missing them.

So time to go solo, no safety net, here I am!

My blog this week, saw huge amounts of traffic, all created by the interest in my blog.  It’s great but I did have a bit of a shock when I recieved an email to say I’d reached my bandwidth on my website.  So a quick email to my hosting company Anagio soon got that rectified.  Good learning though if you are considering doing something to raise online interest, make sure you can support it!

Weekly Round Up

Keep on running – The Martin sisters complete their challenge
After visiting the London Marathon last Sunday I couldn’t help but blog about the intrepid Martin sisters on the last ‘leg’ of their 3 marathons in 3 weekends challenge.  I spent a very enjoyable day in London inspired by the determination of all the participants and inspired by our beautiful capital city and its people.

Is it possible to make goals too scary?
Inspired by client’s experience this was my first guest blogging gig!  Wow, it felt good to have a blog published on www.BirdsOnTheBlog.com I even got some comments too, have a look and add some comments of your own.  This applies to all blogs by the way, bloggers love to receive comments.

A day in the life – Zoe Brown, B Websites 
Time for my first ever guest blog.  Zoe Brown, business woman and Mum of five children gave an exhausting account of her daily life.  I hope this is the first of many guests to write about how they balance work and life.  If you’d like to write ‘A day in the life’ please contact me.

Where it all began
I’d been asked to write about how I left corporate life and got started. I didn’t think it would interest many but it was surprising the amount of attention this blog post received.  I wanted to highlight that if I can do it anyone can, so stop thinking too much about doing something and just do it.?

Coming up next week, a personal journey, another song, some marketing and hopefully another ‘Day in the life’ guest.

Have a happy week,

Sue Bown

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

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Our wedding - a good decision

Once upon a time there was a very frustrated, unhappy, unfulfilled person working in a very good job in sales and marketing for a large international airline.  My life was not as I’d have liked it to have been.  I had only been married for two years and during that time my Golf Pro husband, David took Mondays and Tuesdays off, I was off Saturdays and Sundays.  I was working long hours and it wasn’t working for me and my life.  Then the company I worked for offered voluntary redundancy packages and I applied.  Part of me wanted them to turn down my application and the other ‘brave’ part was desperate for them to say ‘yes’.  When they did say ‘yes’, the brave part of me suddenly turned into the ‘not so brave’ and it took a good number of  sleepless nights to begin to get used to the idea.

Did I have a plan of what I was going to do – No

Did I realise what it all entailed – No

Did I give much thought to what I was going to live on – No

A couple of months later, I left my cosseted corporate life.  Gulp!   I say cosseted, I didn’t realise that at the time.  I took my monthly paycheck, my company car, my company phone, my private health insurance for granted.  I didn’t realise what it was like to be out there on your own without the big company name behind you.

The day after I left I remember going to my golf club, texting all my friends, basically bragging about where I was and what I was doing.  This was the life!   I was going to play golf every day, spend time lunching with friends and have a good time.  Which to begin with I did.  As time passed I realised there was more to life than golfing and lunching, also I needed to start earning some money.

By chance, I met a lady who was training to be a life coach, she was looking for practice clients.  Her offer couldn’t have come at a better time.  Her advert said ‘Are you at a crossroads?’   I felt I was at a crossroads, the lights had broken and were stuck on STOP.  Working with her was one of the best decisions I have made, finding out about coaching and what it could do opened my eyes to me and to my life.  In fact, I enjoyed working with her so much that I decided to do the Life Coaching course too.  The decision was that unscientific.

I immersed myself into the course, I loved every minute of it.  I learnt so much about me, my personality, others personalities, communicating, achieving, having a choice, goal-setting and so much more.  I appreciate you shouldn’t look back with regret, but I should have done it years before.  However, on further reflection I probably wouldn’t have taken it seriously.  Being that bit older gave me the wisdom to see coaching for what it is – brilliant and life changing!

In the time since I trained, I have set up my own coaching business, The Coaching Zone.  I work with clients on work/life balance issues, on setting goals and targets in their businesses,  I work with corporate clients on improving communication, getting better jobs and lots more.

My clients have achieved improved business revenue by 300%, redundancy avoidance, redundancy survival, saved marriages, weight loss, promotion, the list goes on.

And me, well I’ve discovered talents I didn’t know I had, I’ve amazed myself with my achievements,  I have days off with my husband, I enjoy my golf and I’m happy!

So that’s how it all began, four years ago.  Leaving my job, studying to be a coach are some of the best decisions I have ever made in my life, oh and marrying my husband!  Funny how the best decisions I make are taken with not too much thought.

A Day in the Life – Zoe Brown
Keep on running – The Martin sisters complete their challenge
Would you buy more time?
Sarah Martin – aiming high and far
A Day in the Life
How do I indentify my target market?
How changing your view can reinvent your life

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

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Fed up with your avoidance tactics

Do you find you have days when procrastination is the order of the day.  You wake up in the morning filled with focus and determination.  You have a to-do list as long as your arm.  Then something happens to stop you in your tracks.  What is it, fear, perfectionism, control, indecision, bad time mangement, whatever it is it doesn’t feel good.  The brakes go on and the breaks go on.

Procrastination. The definition of this syllable-rich word is, to put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness or to postpone or delay needlessly (source: www.thefreedictionary.com).

Now, I’m not going to go on about it, because it’s possible you’ve arrived here looking for a swift solution.

So let’s cut to the chase:

My Top Tip To Stop Procrastinating

Choose one non-negotiable hour every day when you will get on and do the tasks that regularly cause procrastination. The real tough tasks.

Set the countdown time on your mobile phone or your PC for one hour.  Make sure an alarm is going to sound at the end of an hour.

And get on with it!  See how much you can achieve in an hour.  It’s amazing.

Let me know how you get on.

About the Author: Sue Bown: Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

Twitter @thecoachingzone
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheCoachingZone

Other blog posts:
Would you buy more time?
Sarah Martin – aiming high and far
A Day in the Life
How do I indentify my target market?
How changing your view can reinvent your life

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

Stress Reducing Dark Chocolate

Apparently it does, that’s the good news.  Research has shown that dark chocolate, rich in antioxidants, reduces cortisol the stress hormone.  The bad news, stress, often referred to as the silent killer, can lead to serious health problems such a heart disease and high blood pressure. Less serious health problems yet still unpleasant side effects are hair loss and acne.

In a previous article, I mentioned that a recent Harvard Study had shown that most people spend 46.9% of their waking hours in a state of distraction.  Does that sound like you?  It’s easily done in a world full of technology that is supposed to make life easier, when in many cases makes life more complex and frustrating. Or maybe you’re a working parent who has many roles to fulfil in life and finds juggling them all impossible.  Or you’re a business owner and are working long exhausting hours.  Maybe your job is very demanding and with cuts to staffing levels your job description has grown beyond proportions.  Whatever the cause of your stress, I have a solution.

I am offering a free 6 week email coaching programme called ‘Free Your Mind – Live Your Life’.  This programme is designed to help you do exactly that;’ Free Your Mind’ of stress and worry and ‘Live Your Life’ to the full and enjoy every moment.

Oh and keep a packet of Green & Blacks ready for emergencies!

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

Hope is good

It’s a New Year.  Have you noticed all of the hope that’s around this time of year?  Just reading through blogs, posts and tweets they’re all packed with hope.  I love this time of year for this.  Talk of resolutions, change, improvements, wishes, achievements….everyone is hoping!  It’s wonderful, it’s inspiring!

I started to write this post, got so far, went out to the supermarket and read the headlines on the papers!  All hope was dashed, the papers seem to be collectively conspiring against all of our wonderful hope.

So my resolution is:  Stop buying newspapers!  Get my news from the internet.

What’s your resolution for 2011?  What are you doing just for you?

If that seems like a struggle, you could always sign up to my ‘Free Your Mind – Live Your Life’ email coaching programme, it’s free and it does exactly what it says.

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts