tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55571892168225918992012-01-18T11:12:18.846ZAbout what it's like being in your head and in the world. Real-life, really practical ways to deal better with your life.Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.comBlogger751100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-75647149340632448412012-01-18T11:12:00.000Z2012-01-18T11:12:18.856Z

I often say this, but it's worthy or repetition. The two most formative thuings which happen to build a person are parenting and schooling. If schooling is problematic, then private tuition is the best way I know of, to get your children back on track at school. Educating a child is like building a house. You start at the foundations, and you build them well. With solid foundations, you can

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-6939694518781572182011-12-01T09:55:00.000Z2011-12-01T09:55:14.117Z

I have been corresponding with a client who is working to find her place in life. That is made far harder because there is a long history of influence from a very dominant person. Such influences make thing very difficult. Here's what I had to say: Hi Jayne,  If you are now well away from that dominant personality, then you can begin to explore. You'll need to keep a very close eye on your

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-30293629139027334132011-10-24T14:20:00.000+01:002011-10-24T14:20:08.497+01:00

Well now, here's something joyful for you from a young man called Erik Mongrain. I think that covers it! Enjoy. LIKE IT? SHARE IT! Using these buttons:

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-33772285187709833082011-10-10T10:26:00.000+01:002011-10-10T10:26:50.437+01:00

Hi J, I see this is a long-standing goal, and one which duplicates an earlier goal, so you've struggled for quite a while on this one. Here are some thoughts for you. Persistent problems come down to habit, and they are difficult to remove. But not impossible. My ideas for you are these: 1. Find a talisman to remind you that things are going to be different 2. Get to the root of EXACTLY

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-74771421743513659592011-09-21T09:06:00.000+01:002011-09-21T09:06:56.250+01:00

Hello T. So you'd like to "live a life filled with energy". What a lovely phrase! The first thing I would say is to flesh that out with really specific, concrete goals. What would a life full of energy look like? Where would that life be based? (Where would you live?) Who would be around you? If you can't give names, give attributes - ages, genders, income brackets, personal characteristics,

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-28199613459949771242011-08-08T10:31:00.000+01:002011-08-08T10:31:00.913+01:00

Hello Anne, I noticed your comment about not having coaching because of your lack of commitment. I often say, I coach real people with all their flaws - not perfect versions of those people. Coaching is all about succeeding with a client despite their challenges. I mentioned briefly how I'd start - with clear goals you can believe in. But that's just the start. Almost inevitably, things don't

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-87682707404820139402011-06-24T10:15:00.000+01:002011-06-24T10:15:01.662+01:00

  This is an anonymised extract from my dialgoue with an E-Coaching client: There's a nice analogy I think I can get away with with you, (it's a bit rude). Perhaps you've heard it before. We start life as a diamond. Shiny, new, open and entirely wonderful (children are these things). In our diamond years, we are punished by parents, teachers, other children and by our understanding of reality

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-10626538045100881562011-05-27T10:46:00.000+01:002011-05-27T10:46:45.764+01:00

Julia wrote to me following my BLOG article on anger: Hi Chris, So true about the anger. I have experienced it a lot lately. I am usually one of the most relaxed, laid back people that I know and I've always been the one to let things pass. But lately I am full of anger and I usually become defensive. As if I am finally standing up for myself but not sure I am doing it the right way...

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-14132456943619098512011-05-25T10:36:00.001+01:002011-05-25T10:37:27.021+01:00

Hello Jacqueline, Anger is driven by two things: a mis-match between what is and what ought to be a sense of powerlessness to change it. Removing the anger can involve: changing a perception about how things are changing a belief about how things ought to be increasing control finding new coping tactics - Sometimes it's a mixture of some or all of these. It's important to try to tackle this

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-64226964821206302232011-05-09T12:11:00.000+01:002011-05-09T12:11:06.185+01:00

Hello Debbie, So you want to be more relaxed and worry less. Worry is a big source of misery in many people's lives and the causes and cures are varied. Start by getting your worry monsters out of the shadows and onto a well-lit table. When you're fully alert and feeling good, write them down in sentenced like "I am worried about money". Next express the worry in terms of consequences: "I

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-34261650142671173572011-04-12T09:28:00.003+01:002011-04-12T09:30:59.609+01:00

You OK? The world is a troubling place at the moment, with global recession, middle Eastern instability and class 7 nuclear incidents. That's one of the problems with news, of course. Awareness for its own sake is not always - and perhaps is not often - a good thing. I recall a while ago, when this dawned on me. Hugh Edwards was reading the BBC news and saying "An update for you on that lorry

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-40472763012058260662011-04-08T11:55:00.000+01:002011-04-08T11:55:09.540+01:00

Hello Dermot I noticed your observation that "I could coach myself". This is a common tought, and although you may suspect my vested interest, I honeslty think it's a mistaken one. If you look back at the last 5 years, you might see yourself in the existence you're currently unhappy with, and if you do - you might ask yourself why you haven't coached yourself up until now. Usually, we know

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-9094556385309827992011-03-10T16:43:00.000Z2011-03-10T16:43:05.522Z

Claire writes: Hi there, I feel like I’m stuck in a massive major rut at the moment and on and off I’ve been experiencing bouts of depression. I’m unhappy in my job it’s not stimulating enough and the environment is wrong for me. I work in engineering and I am not the tiniest bit interested in this company or what it does. After an incident of sexual harassment that I reported last year this

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-35698278032298435372011-03-09T12:39:00.001Z2011-03-09T12:41:43.905Z

'A' Writes: Here's my current situation and queries. I am an experienced writer, but suffered redundancy last year from my main job as a careers advisor after nine years of service. I have a new part-time job, but I am currently also setting up a freelance writing business. My main problem is trying to split my time equally between my paid job, the new business and looking after my

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-82876382116544614542011-02-21T15:45:00.000Z2011-02-21T15:45:23.170Z

Hello Joanne So you want to feel more motivated. When motivation is lacking it's particularly difficult, because you'll struggle to motivate yourself to fix it! The engine of change is the thing that's broken. Without motivation, we live life at a low level, avoiding the worst of the bad stuff, trying to tread the least awful path. Beyond that, we're powerless to make changes. At it's core,

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-4012441120625631942011-02-18T11:22:00.000Z2011-02-18T11:22:15.145Z

Ed Haddon - Life Coach Ed was a client of mine a couple of years ago. He contacted me recently to tell me what he's been up to and to show me his new website. The quote below appears on his home page (and here, with Ed's permission): "Two years ago I was at a crossroads in my career and I knew I wanted to be happier but I had exhausted my own ideas about how. So I had some life coaching. Deeply

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-11769725855062607052011-02-08T13:51:00.000Z2011-02-08T13:51:52.026Z

Hello Alison, So you're not feeling fulfilled, but unsure about how much coaching would help. Normal on both counts! There's a saying - "If you wait for certainty, you wait for death" and - in a grim sense - I think that's true. In all worthwhile challenges (and finding fulfilment must surely qualify, and the older we get the more keenly we feel it), there are no certainties - there are

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-66965470675787577922011-01-28T13:32:00.001Z2011-01-28T13:56:40.397Z

Now, don't worry, I'm not going all mystical on you, so please bear with me. As I spend more time looking closely at human thinking, working with others on their pain and their happiness, it is increasingly clear that the emotional part of our selves is pivotal in all that we strive for. That part of us doesn't do maths, would run from Mr. Rubic's cube and doesn't always speak loud enough for

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-18639527296203439272011-01-12T10:29:00.000Z2011-01-12T10:29:10.039Z

After reading my article on life purpose, Mark asks: I am very interested in the idea of articulating a life purpose.  The question I have at this stage is whether a person could have a mixture of the examples that you gave e.g. related to planet, discovery, helping others, creating new things, showing the way etc?Hello Mark, The Life Purpose process is all about extracting a single

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-25860470793394084452011-01-04T10:36:00.000Z2011-01-04T10:36:55.532Z

You know - there's so much drivel written in the area of self-help. I stay keyed in to a lot of newsletters and other professionals' stuff, so I know what the market's doing and what I need to compete with, and because of that I, perhaps like you, am getting a flush of it now, hoping to tap into the new year marketplace. Common failure mechanisms are: 1. To entertain without educating - you

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-36918500816327716722010-12-22T20:01:00.000Z2010-12-22T20:01:49.688Z

Yesterday I watched Jim Carrey's film Yes Man... Click the video to see the trailer. If you have any thoughts of experiences on it which you'd like to share with others, please do so in the discussion forum. If someone got there first, just add tot he topic, otherwise, why not start one? LIKE IT? SHARE IT! Using these buttons:

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-50639777900265316292010-12-15T10:53:00.001Z2010-12-15T11:01:24.640Z

Human beings can "do" logic - we know that two plus two equals four - but logic does not usually determine our behaviour. We eat the wrong things, resist exercise, keep dating the wrong people, and so on. I've likened this to being sat in the passenger seat of a car with a maniac behind the wheel. You can keep screaming at him "YOU'RE HEADING OFF A CLIFF!!!" - but he doesn't listen. To a large

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-75386441201553848812010-12-13T10:45:00.000Z2010-12-13T10:45:30.715Z

Yeah. young an optimistic, but I like a dose of that now and then. Too often, growing up and then old means growing cynical and sad. FIGHT IT! Drink in this video, and the music, and when you ome out the other side - paste on a grin, and maybe see things a little differently for a while. (Great track for salsa dancing by the way!)

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-21581420072068668322010-12-06T11:02:00.000Z2010-12-06T11:02:33.576Z

Hello Ana, So you want to stop criticising yourself, so you've recognised your "self talk" - what the voice in your head is saying. These voices are often our most severe critics, and they crush our self esteem, and trap us in small unhappy lives. I noticed your comment about not being able to afford coaching (there's a video about there here by the way), so I thought I'd outline some

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-43531660420366164742010-11-17T11:26:00.000Z2010-11-17T11:26:44.391Z

Hello Glyn, Your "no time" explanation is an example of a thing our minds do to us to trap us. We give ourselves reasons not to do a thing and thereby avoid doing it, which protects our ego from something (usually a fear - a False Expectation Appearing Real). But we often substitute a false reason for the real one in order to again, protect our ego. This process is not done consciously. So in

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-29255117542905585172010-10-29T11:10:00.001+01:002010-10-29T11:10:51.983+01:00

Hello Dominique, I noticed your fear about being bullied with life coaching, so I wanted to send you a quickie to say that coaching is not about telling you what to do. Good coaches will even resist giving you ideas about what you might do. The coach's job is not to direct their clients, but to find ways to help clients discover what you want and how to get it. You're always in control, but

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-11737909652381446882010-10-19T11:11:00.002+01:002010-10-19T18:15:04.057+01:00

Hi Will, A good place to start is to think about your current reality and invert it. So - think about your life as it is today, and ask yourself what you don't like about it. Chances are you'll have a few items in that list, but let's work through one item. Let's say it's: "I have no social life".Now invert it to become: "I have a socal life".- not quite rocket science yet, but we have just

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-52274344092704349612010-10-15T12:05:00.001+01:002010-10-19T18:24:53.573+01:00

Personally, I love solitude and I've had a lot of it in my life. When I don't get enough of it, I become agitated, resentful, and I yearn for it. But many folks aren't that way; they don't like it. They may actually fear it - greatly. And the fear of being alone sometimes forms the walls of a trap - keeping them in a bad situation because the alternative - solitude - seems far worse. They may

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-54425396149454618272010-10-15T10:25:00.002+01:002010-10-19T18:26:29.453+01:00

 Hello Andy, So you want to change where you live, and you lack confidence and you're pessimistic. You may also be far too busy at work and highly stressed; these probably leave you with no time and no energy for planning and making big changes like this outside of work. It's a trap. The question is - how are you going to get out of it? I'll start by asking you why you don't like the place you

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-31648991543306852482010-10-05T09:49:00.001+01:002010-10-19T18:28:43.222+01:00

Hi Josephine, I noticed your comment about being trapped by geography. Henry Ford said: When you've tried everything - remember this: you haven't In my experience there are always new options but our believes and fears prevent us seeing them. Most commonly, we want change, but we don't want to change anything - and this bends "there are no options I really like" into "there are no options".

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-61904568835887253252010-09-14T11:52:00.001+01:002010-10-19T18:29:04.390+01:00

A dear friend sent me a link to this YouTube video today. The description says: The illustrations and the captions are  from the book "Be Happy: A Little Book to Help You Live a Happy Life" (2007) by Monica Sheehan. The music is "Cuore di Sabbia" (Sand Heart) by Pasquale Catalano, from the soundtrack of the movie "Mine Vaganti" (2010) (Loose Cannons) directed by Ferzan OzpetekThe message is

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-7101630994187554112010-08-26T10:14:00.001+01:002010-10-19T18:29:19.287+01:00

I'm working with a young E-Coaching client who recently told me she wanted "the finer things in life". Since my response is generally useful, and does not compromise client confidentiality, I thought I would include some of it here, where it might help a wider readership. I said: This is some help, but again, not very specific. My idea of the finer things in life is likely to be very different

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-34490883716290200522010-08-20T09:15:00.003+01:002010-10-19T18:29:34.653+01:00

Hello V, I noticed your comment about having courage to take risks. Finding courage is about two things: strength of motivation and rational analysis of risk. You can begin to tackle the first one by placing a powerful reminder of your mission in your thinking space (see here http://www.uklifecoaching.org/leavetherut.htm) and by getting specific about your goals (http://www.uklifecoaching.org/

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-69423851507569211962010-08-09T09:55:00.001+01:002010-08-09T09:55:54.385+01:00

Hello Helen, I noticed your comment: Doing the right things but never moving forwards - and thought I'd send you some thoughts on that. One of the reason human beings - the smartest creatures on the planet - find living their lives difficult and changing them even more so - is that we cannot be confident in the quality of our thinking when it comes to our own lives. There are two main

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-16532249133412592562010-08-06T13:54:00.001+01:002010-10-19T18:30:08.122+01:00

Hello David, Regarding your comment about procrastination, I thought I'd send you some thoughts which you may find helpful. Firstly, a paradigm shift: It's human nature to lament what we don't like.It's NOT natural, but far more useful, to look at how to improve it. I'm guessing you want to remove your procrastination, and so it's worth analysing why it happens. Usually, a lack of

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-74392326335911180812010-07-30T10:23:00.000+01:002010-07-30T10:23:47.879+01:00

Hello Jane, Your question: why can't I [coach] myself? - is an interesting one. I invite you to look in at your life and ask if things are the way you want, and if not - why not? The chances are that you struggle to stay focussed on any one issue long enough to make change happen, you're distracted, your motivation goes up and down, you fight off pessimism and fear, and you may simply not

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-71301452472010311082010-07-21T11:22:00.002+01:002010-10-19T18:31:19.748+01:00

Hello Jan, To answer your questions, psychoanalysis is a kind of therapy associated with Freud, NLP is an umbrella term coined by Dr. Bandler for a set of ideas he developed on how minds work and some useful techniques emerge from that understanding, hypnosis is a way to help people to focus their minds and access more of them. Different coaches use different techniques and any one coach may

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-70929937044598292992010-07-20T09:47:00.002+01:002010-08-03T09:55:07.635+01:00

For a website customer: Carrying some extra pounds has become the national hobby, and it's getting worse. It's not difficult to see why - sedentary lifestyles and cheaper convenience foods - but it's rather more difficult to solve it. In a sense it's easy - eat less, eat better, exercise more - but of course, that's offensively simplistic, because finding the motivation to do those things for

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-15464826135053718492010-07-19T10:56:00.001+01:002010-07-30T10:40:47.510+01:00

Often when clients tell me the one thing they'd like to change - they say something like: I'd like to be living life to the full - entirely normal, but coaches know that it's not useful to formulate goals that way. I'm reminded of my favourite quote: I always wanted to be someone, but I should have been more specificAlso - there's: a plan without date is just a dream and: If you fail to plan,

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-40136885006348553262010-07-16T10:49:00.000+01:002010-07-16T10:49:27.654+01:00

The answer is (all together now): One Bite At A Time! But what's that got to do with anything? Well, sometimes people look at their lives and conclude that every aspect of it seems horrible. Being human, we tend to feel despondent and defeated, which of course, can make things worse. So how do you set about changing that? Where do you start? A key first step is to look at each element of

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-71368258360686519532010-07-12T14:24:00.001+01:002010-10-19T18:32:58.504+01:00

My ol' mum had a hard life, but, with a special strength of character, she learned to make the best of the little she had. In the first house I can remember living in, the internal walls were not plastered - you could see the brickwork behind thick dark green paint. She couldn't afford to plaster, but she stuck layers of newspaper over the green paint, then painted it - poor man's plaster -

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-25592853198047489292010-07-02T09:05:00.001+01:002010-10-19T18:34:13.722+01:00

How can I improve self confidence when I am ugly? I am balding and fat?I am fat and bald and I can't get a girl, whats more I am a nice guy so my chances go right out the windown cause i hear chicks like the vad boy, they like guys who treat them like $hit. My mum didnt raise me to be like that to women. My Answer:Bald is IN! You don't say how fat you are, but (a) you can fix it and (b) it

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-59130224227801297852010-07-01T11:41:00.001+01:002010-10-19T18:34:37.711+01:00

 One of the things I learned in my corporate life was that you can't manage what you can't measure, and so measuring (or "metrics") are an important management tool, especially where providing a service is concerned. That's why I always send out a survey when I've delivered a service. If you've been reading my newsletters for a while, you'll get a survey. If you've been coached my me, you'll

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-9226976918092731132010-06-15T09:59:00.002+01:002010-06-15T10:16:58.498+01:00

I wrote this to a client this morning. I thought I;d BLOG it (I've changed the names) to give you some insight into how my clients are changing their lives. It's not easy sometimes, but it's ALWAYS possible. Hi James, You've managed to do a big and difficult thing. All the more difficult because a large factor in your decision was your own life journey and what you want from it. "Selfish"

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-51574380616470217432010-06-11T11:21:00.000+01:002010-06-11T11:21:46.359+01:00

Life's challenges can be formidable - and that's fundamentally because of our minds. The human mind is really a collision of two brains. Briefly, our higher brain is able to think rationally whilst our lower brain mediates intuition and is the seat of our emotions. When you understand that these two often conflict, and that the lower brain is generally in charge, then much of the human

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-6428181142333657132010-06-04T11:48:00.002+01:002010-06-04T11:54:50.190+01:00

Recently, I've been doing a lot of "carping" (zeizing) my "diems" (days) as the sunny weather has shown up for what might be a fleeting moment, and this has lead me to make new connections in my thinking and my philosophy of life. I do a lot of work with people on time management, and we look at priorities, and try to align how we spend time with what we want to get done. This is another kind

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-5529379921917183302010-05-26T10:30:00.000+01:002010-05-26T10:30:07.221+01:00

I wrote this answer to a Yahoo question from a young person suffering with low self confidence, and it was chosen as the Best Answer - so I thought some of my readers here might benefit from it too. The reason why most of these answers won't help you much, is that they involve what you'll consider to be lying. It's no good telling yourself you're not ugly, when you're pretty darn sure that

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-7492267010833385352010-05-25T10:10:00.003+01:002010-05-25T10:17:04.570+01:00

How do you see yourself? How do you imagine others see you? Are you happy when you think about that? If not, then you probably have a self-image issue. It's possible that your appearance really is an issue, but it's far more likely that it's your feelings which are the issue causing the problems. And you can't fix those with a diet, surgery or grooming. Feelings are seldom entirely rational;

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-17293909045037841392010-05-04T12:49:00.000+01:002010-05-04T12:49:17.367+01:00

The really big obstacles in our lives are often put there by ourselves, and they are all driven by FEAR, which it's useful to think of as the achronym: False Expectations Appearing Real Deciding to opt for coaching can be a stressful decision as my postbag often shows. The stress is all about fear (expectation which isn't real). Resistance surfaces in many forms, and is usually based on a false

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-21537170733123893582010-03-29T12:10:00.013+01:002010-04-02T13:23:57.658+01:00

So, it's the end of March, spring is here and you're a quarter of the way through 2010. Now now's a good time to stand back and take stock. How are those new year resolutions going? Is 2010 the year of change you wanted? Are you looking forward to the summer with a sleeker, sprightly body? Are the things you want beginning to show up, and the things you don't receding? Permanent change in your

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-2357975223620696552010-03-18T12:15:00.004Z2010-04-02T13:26:46.773+01:00

One of the central themes in coaching people is to improve their perceptions of the world. We think we're awake, we think we have good eyesight and good hearing, and we're pretty smart, and we've been around a while, and - well - not much gets past us - we know how things are. The trouble with that is it's baloney. It's compelling baloney, but no less italian sausage for that. Our experiences

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-69921621085951103382010-03-16T12:52:00.001Z2010-03-16T13:00:52.007Z

This blog is now located at http://real-life-coaching.blogspot.com/. You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here. For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to http://real-life-coaching.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-32133427859088971052010-03-16T11:03:00.001Z2010-04-02T13:29:04.580+01:00

One of the services I offer is to help people find their life purpose; how they'll find happiness and meaning in their lives. I do that through an online course and one of the exercises in it is to ask clients to record the most memorable events in their lives. This morning I received such an exercise from a client and - yet again - one of their earliest memories was huge, negative, and from a

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-20479896304310846492010-03-12T11:55:00.001Z2010-04-02T13:30:24.252+01:00

Good things happen when you protect your mind from the clutter which generally pollutes it. The problem is that most people never find out because - far from removing sources of mental clutter, we tend to take comfort in them. Do you read the cereal packet at breakfast? You're injecting clutter. Do you leave the TV or radio on in the background when you're ironing, washing up, doing general

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-19425103231888789632010-03-04T10:01:00.005Z2010-04-02T13:31:21.727+01:00

There are so many ways to be miserable at work! (by the way - did you do my You at Work Survey  yet?) I'm working with a lady at the moment who has quite a set of issues, and I sent her an email response to give her something to think about until our next session.Many of her issues arise often with my clients, and the thinking fodder is the same, so I thought it might be useful to some of my

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-14825031511331134422010-03-02T10:15:00.002Z2010-04-02T13:33:13.240+01:00

Our attitudes toward money are often complex, and (as is the way with the humans) often in ways that don't serve us well. I've been experimenting with a little technique in my own life, and it has worked wonders for me. I'm now using it with clients, and today I thought I'd share it with you too. I've written about money being power and about how, in a limited sense, money can buy you happiness.

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-16544830510096386462010-02-26T10:46:00.003Z2010-04-02T13:34:26.304+01:00

Meet Lise. She's an Icelandic pony - built for the harsh weather. She's also rather lovely, and she's my first real introduction to horses. For most of my 50 years, I never really understood the attraction. Why would you want to climb on some poor creatures back and kick it. But, like a lot of other things, my cynical aversion to this thing I'd never tried disappeared - when I tried it. A lot

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-2561666697437123222010-02-16T14:50:00.000Z2010-02-16T14:50:00.449Z

Firstly, that ain't me, right? That looks to me like a WWII haircut, and a WWII hut. Odd actually, as I've just got back from Bletchley Park, (the world war two place where they cracked the Enigma device) and, anticipating long periods of being outside in the cold, and being elligible for Saga holidays these days, I've invested in a full set of (oh, the shame) Long Johns - as illustrated above -

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-56151460581046487112010-02-11T11:20:00.002Z2010-04-02T13:34:51.308+01:00

Well, my previous post to the depression forum went down like a vile smelling lead balloon. So here's the response I posted, which may be of use to those reading here, who also didn't like it. ------- My post was written very carefully to find the balance between sympathy and truth. It wasn't intended to offend, and - reading it again - I don't thing there is offence in it, except in so far as

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-15607901691412253652010-02-02T11:42:00.002Z2011-07-26T08:59:22.604+01:00

If you have information products you'd like to sell, then I can sell them for you in my online shop. To explore that further, please contact me. If you'd also like to put your information products on Amazon for vast global reach, then usually - you'd need an ISBN - a lengthy expensive process. However, I now have an Amazon Pro account which means I can list products which do NOT have ISBNS ASINs

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-6261700836593285602010-02-01T10:08:00.001Z2010-02-01T10:10:08.983Z

  I contribute to an online forum on depression, and I thought this post might interest some: Hello D, As children we are rewarded for good behaviour and punished for bad behaviour, as part of the "civilizing" process. As a result, most of us grow up with the notion that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. But outside of the context of childhood upbringing,

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-27256828455426188052010-01-22T16:16:00.003Z2010-04-02T13:35:26.121+01:00

Here's a Fantastic quote I saw on Twitter (join me!) this morning Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity Know who said that? Will Smith! I LOVE THAT! So entrenched is our sense of "my place in the world", and of "how the world is/works", that we see it as CERTAIN REALITY, and we see any attempt to dispute it or change it at naivety, stupidity or worse. "No", we say,

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-46388888188657854622010-01-18T11:23:00.001Z2010-04-02T13:37:41.425+01:00

Well folks, I just completed the second draw, and the five luck y winners, each of who gets a half-price coaching session were: Christina K Kim T Jane S Ros K Alison G Congratulations to all of you. I have sent you direct email. Please claim your prize before the end of this Wednesday 20th January. For those who are interested in the process, here's how I do it. Firstly, I gather all the

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-90498535787152926542010-01-11T14:44:00.001Z2010-04-02T13:38:02.604+01:00

Prize Draw Winners Announced!   Following last weeks competition, I am pleased to announce the winners as follows: Gillian Alderton wins a Life Purpose course  Karl Bull wins another Life Purpose course Olena Savchuck wins a Time Management Course Congratulations to all of you. I have sent the winners Facebook mail asking them to contact me with their email addresses so I can send them

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-38028060731843651312009-12-09T14:41:00.003Z2010-04-02T13:38:29.773+01:00

It's a great question, right? We're all fundamentally, genetically, "selfish". Society teaches us to crunch that into a box with a grin pasted on it, but it's still there. The same is true for a number of other human attributes, including what we call "laziness". Many people know this viscerally, and they think that it's a reason why coaching isn't for them. They know what needs to be done,

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-76844931313367985482009-12-04T10:12:00.016Z2010-04-02T13:38:47.641+01:00

Failure is at the root of all ... not succeeding (!). Profound, huh? Failing makes us feel inadequate. It saps our energy and tells us to give up. Who did we think we were, anyway? We hate failure! We try to pretend it's not there - laughing at us, but secretly we know it is.  But really, failure has had a bad rap. It's trite but true: There's no such thing as failure, only feedback If you try

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-12440770992740517772009-12-03T09:41:00.006Z2010-04-02T13:41:45.994+01:00

l was enjoying dinner with a friend yesterday and discussing her 9-year old daughter, Alison. I asked "how's Alison's friend Tulula?" (mainly because I like saying Tulula!). It seemed Tulula was no longer Alison's friend, because, a couple of weeks before, at Alison's birthday house party, Tulula had accidentally kicked her plate over, but more importantly - had not apologised, nor made any

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-56626443971688573862009-11-30T11:14:00.003Z2010-04-02T13:42:04.880+01:00

Do you sometimes find yourself learning the same lessons from different directions - and not realising it until you get there? I had one of those this morning. Beavering away at my desk, I let my tea get cold. I picked it up and took a sip. YUCK. COLD TEA! Then I realisesd that my response was almost a learned reflex. I was taught long ago that cold tea was a Bad Thing, and that lesson was

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-44488037731117343882009-11-24T12:07:00.002Z2010-04-02T13:42:19.374+01:00

Crikey!

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-10956485617592144452009-11-24T11:34:00.001Z2010-04-02T13:42:42.652+01:00

This is another quotation from Dorothy Rowe's wonderful "Guide To Life". If you are depressed you believe these statements, and as long as you believe these, you'll struggle with depression. Here they are: 1. No matter how good and nice I appear to be, I am really bad, evil, valueless, unacceptable to myself and other people. 2. Other people are such that I must fear, hate and envy them. 3.

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-88600707836548633972009-11-19T09:04:00.001Z2010-04-02T13:43:00.757+01:00

In her book Dorothy Rowe's Guide to Life, Dorothy quotes Henry Beston, then goes on to draw parallels: Henry Beston, [writing in The Outer Most House (1928)] about how little we understand animals, said: Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creative through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-21627891762573463342009-11-17T14:52:00.001Z2010-04-02T13:43:17.792+01:00

Running a business is a funny old thing, and success mostly comes down to meeting one particular challenge. I often think that challenge this way. The business owner is on one side of a fence; all the potential clients are on the other side of that fence. The challenge is to get them to step over the fence, walk across your lawn, and buy your stuff. So, you put up a big sign "Great Stuff here on

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-16252417572411734062009-11-06T13:44:00.003Z2010-04-02T13:43:37.357+01:00

I've set up a new Insights Panel; a group of people who help me with my marketing in exchange for vouchers towards buying my products and services, and you can read more about that here. You're welcome to join. But, I thought - why not ask my wider audience, too, and so here is the latest consultation, which I'd really value your opinion on. Hiya folks, Firstly, I hope you're all well. I

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-63358254093840273512009-10-30T19:01:00.001Z2010-04-02T13:44:07.952+01:00

Well, it's dated and quaint, but this Reggie Perrin clip still reflects the degree of nonsense which pervades much of corporate life in the UK. Most of us endure it. Some of us learn to succeed in it. It seems to have a momentum all its own - un-stoppable an intolerable. My corporate clients invariably see no room for movement, no choices that won't get them fired, and no end in sight. So they

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5557189216822591899.post-68528859410662217542009-10-29T11:01:00.000Z2009-10-29T11:23:53.486Z

This blog will mostly (though not only) be about the experience of life and how we can learn to do better, by carefully watching our thoughts and our actions.  Your comments are wecome. Maybe we can build a community here.

Chris Wesleynoreply@blogger.com2