It is not the challenges you overcome that are so important, but the journey you travelled doing so and what you have gleaned
it to share with others that is most significant.
About Me
- Di Wright
- I am an ESL Instructor, Communications Specialist, Career Coach and Novice Writer specifically for your communication/ career goals, and establishing your brand. For over 11 years, I have led leadership/communication workshops (and now online sessions ) on developing leadership skills, enhancing creativity, creating a work/life balance, and many other subjects for the Toronto Board of Education, and in the non-profit and corporate sector. My approach teaches the vital importance of clear, motivational, yet caring communication. I have recently written a journaling workbook for my students/clients that contains weekly reflections with activities. It has been used by life coaches, career consultants and communications instructors. Here is the link for those who wish to learn about my journalling workbook and to purchase it.. http://tinyurl.com/serendipityjournal I’m currently working on my second workbook – a unique guidebook for traveling your career pathway. For more information about my upcoming other workbooks, email me at: d.wri3420@gmail.com
Showing posts with label reflection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reflection. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
Overcoming challenges
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
To Honour International Women's Day
Sisters of the heart
Where ever you are
You are with us
No matter the race, religion, or creed.
We are all one in spirit in womanhood.
Let us not forget how truly fragile we are
without the bond of Sisters of the Heart.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Books for inspiration and for motivation
eading the right book at the right time can bring you to a new level to understanding yourself, others and the pathway you are meant to travel in your career pathway. Good luck and Enjoy !
Books for Personal Motivation and Inspiration: Some of my Favorites:
Living the Seven Habits : Stories of Courage and Inspiration by Stephen R.
Covey
Yesterday I Cried: Celebrating the Lessons of Living and Loving by Iyanla
Vanzant
Travelling Mercies by Anne Lamott
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
The Woman's Book of Soul by Sue Patton Thoele
One Day My Soul Just Opened Up by Iyanla Vanzant
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and it's all small stuff by Richard Carlson
The Power of Optimism by Alan Loy McGinnis
Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach
Life's Little Instruction Book Series by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Covey
Yesterday I Cried: Celebrating the Lessons of Living and Loving by Iyanla
Vanzant
Travelling Mercies by Anne Lamott
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
The Woman's Book of Soul by Sue Patton Thoele
One Day My Soul Just Opened Up by Iyanla Vanzant
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and it's all small stuff by Richard Carlson
The Power of Optimism by Alan Loy McGinnis
Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach
Life's Little Instruction Book Series by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Five People You will Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
For One More Day by Mitch Albom
The Anatomy of a Spirit by Carolyn Myss ( to identify your spiritual path)
Books on Tapping into your Creative Soul:
Julia Cameron’s Books:
The Artist's Way.
Walking in This World.
The Vein of Gold
The Right to Write
two.
Book on Multiple Intelligences:
" Seven Kinds of Smart: Identifying and Developing your Multiple Intelligences." 2nd edition.... by Thomas Armstrong. The publisher is Canbook. You can try ordering it online at www.abebooks.ca.- textbook section. This site has some good prices for gently used books and some new ones too.
Books on Connecting with the Right Brain By Betty Edwards
The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Paperback)
by Betty Edwards
by Betty Edwards
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Seven Lessons to Enhance Creativity and Artistic Self Confidence
Friday, June 20, 2014
Do What You Are
A book I highly recommend as you begin your career and life pathway is the one featured in the below link.
"Do What You Are".... is a classic that you should read through to get a better self- understanding .. Self-awareness is one of the key ingredients of life and career success. Good Luck.
http://www.amazon.com/Do-What-You-Are-Personality/dp/0316167266/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Goals for the New Year
In meeting your goals for the year...try breaking them down into mini-steps or baby steps as in the movie "What about Bob".
Don't let fear of the unknown or failure stop you from doing something you have to in order move your life forward, especially when it comes to your life and career plan.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Be Your Own Consultant
In career and life planning, you often have to be your own consultant. That is why it is so important to take the time for reflection, review and write new goals for yourself on a regular basis.
In this reflection, be true to who your are- not to who you think you should be.
When making a career/ life decision—after you have done sufficient research- listen to your inner voice and trust your instinct.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Reality check about who you are.....
Kelly Culrone in her book Normal Gets You Nowhere comments that you are unique as your fingerprint as deemed by our Creator.
We need to capitalize on this fact.
She advocates that you figure out who you are- your unique selling points and features, and get down to it; but bring conciseness and awareness along for the ride.
She also recommends that you be realistic about yourself and others, and not play the fool.
In other words, take off those rose -coloured glasses and get to work on your self- assessment, and your career and life plan that outlines your goals.
We need to capitalize on this fact.
She advocates that you figure out who you are- your unique selling points and features, and get down to it; but bring conciseness and awareness along for the ride.
She also recommends that you be realistic about yourself and others, and not play the fool.
In other words, take off those rose -coloured glasses and get to work on your self- assessment, and your career and life plan that outlines your goals.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
What is the colour of your grass
As we begin 2011, a lot of us make resolutions for change in our lives and yes, change is good, yet at the same time- to play the devil s advocate here- we have to reflect on what things we really genuinely should change in our lives.
To elaborate here,do you seriously believe that all the grass in your life is yellow. Something we sometimes simply have to come to terms with is that there is no perfect life, job, spouse, relationship, child or parent.
In other words, there is always going to be yellow and brown spots in our grass. This is something that we must take into account when making a major decision in our lives.
Yes, we all have heard of people who have made a drastic change in their lives—thinking that the grass is green over there only to find out that the grass was just as yellow over there. We often have used filters that coloured our experiences making the grass brown or yellow and so much more delectable on the other side... these filters often make us colour blind to the fact that our current grass is actually quite green exactly where we are. The filters have distorted the true picture for us thereby making us sometimes foolishly ponder a drastic and unwarranted change in our lives.
An epiphany is experienced when you realize that the grass is greener where you water it—in other words-- that only you and you alone are responsible for your life satisfaction and happiness. So sometimes you have to take out that hypothetical watering hose (vessel) and pour more efforts into your life to make that part of it green again.
We can look to others for inspiration and motivation in our watering efforts and how our water vessel is created. We also can journal to explore some of the issues that may be responsible for our yellow and brown spots. Depending on the situation, we can have conversations with loved ones, colleagues, coworkers, our life and work managers to get a deeper perspective on some of these issues.
With a more mature, seasoned perspective with the help of mentors, or life and career coaches, we can now look at our grass with as few of these filters as realistically possible.
Along with these efforts , we can with a little more initiative and patience ,slowly and purposefully, turn the grass green under our feet once again.
If we go through this contemplative and reflective process, better career and life decisions can made if we embrace and accept the reality that the grass is not always greener on the other side.
To elaborate here,do you seriously believe that all the grass in your life is yellow. Something we sometimes simply have to come to terms with is that there is no perfect life, job, spouse, relationship, child or parent.
In other words, there is always going to be yellow and brown spots in our grass. This is something that we must take into account when making a major decision in our lives.
Yes, we all have heard of people who have made a drastic change in their lives—thinking that the grass is green over there only to find out that the grass was just as yellow over there. We often have used filters that coloured our experiences making the grass brown or yellow and so much more delectable on the other side... these filters often make us colour blind to the fact that our current grass is actually quite green exactly where we are. The filters have distorted the true picture for us thereby making us sometimes foolishly ponder a drastic and unwarranted change in our lives.
An epiphany is experienced when you realize that the grass is greener where you water it—in other words-- that only you and you alone are responsible for your life satisfaction and happiness. So sometimes you have to take out that hypothetical watering hose (vessel) and pour more efforts into your life to make that part of it green again.
We can look to others for inspiration and motivation in our watering efforts and how our water vessel is created. We also can journal to explore some of the issues that may be responsible for our yellow and brown spots. Depending on the situation, we can have conversations with loved ones, colleagues, coworkers, our life and work managers to get a deeper perspective on some of these issues.
With a more mature, seasoned perspective with the help of mentors, or life and career coaches, we can now look at our grass with as few of these filters as realistically possible.
Along with these efforts , we can with a little more initiative and patience ,slowly and purposefully, turn the grass green under our feet once again.
If we go through this contemplative and reflective process, better career and life decisions can made if we embrace and accept the reality that the grass is not always greener on the other side.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Holistic Employee Engagment
As you work on your communication and career goals, you might like to reflect on nurturing and creating holistic employee engagement.
Holistic employee engagement is really about creating a positive influence on people s behaviour.
This goal can be achieved through many of the following means:
1. Support them emotionally, within the context of workplace communications
2. Provide guidance and positive feedback for performance enhancement
3. Recognize good work publicly and openly
4. Demonstrate a commitment to honouring their views and opinions—ask for their perspectives and act on their workplace needs and wishes- what is needed to do their job
5. Work one- on -one in positive collaboration with employees on their work
6. Avoid too little or too much guidance
7. Avoid detailing to extreme measures about their respective projects
8. Avoid unconstructive feedback by addressing only the issue at hand—not all their past transgressions at once or vague comments that do not address specific work behaviours and performance..
9. Do not hold grudges—move forward each day in your attempt to engage them holistically
Holistic employee engagement is really about creating a positive influence on people s behaviour.
This goal can be achieved through many of the following means:
1. Support them emotionally, within the context of workplace communications
2. Provide guidance and positive feedback for performance enhancement
3. Recognize good work publicly and openly
4. Demonstrate a commitment to honouring their views and opinions—ask for their perspectives and act on their workplace needs and wishes- what is needed to do their job
5. Work one- on -one in positive collaboration with employees on their work
6. Avoid too little or too much guidance
7. Avoid detailing to extreme measures about their respective projects
8. Avoid unconstructive feedback by addressing only the issue at hand—not all their past transgressions at once or vague comments that do not address specific work behaviours and performance..
9. Do not hold grudges—move forward each day in your attempt to engage them holistically
Monday, October 25, 2010
Job and Career Exploration
Job and Career Exploration
Below are some questions to reflect upon and journal about when contemplating and choosing a job or exploring a career option:
1. Why do I want to go in this direction with my career or want to do this job.
2. What is my motivation for choosing this career or job.
3. What is my thinking behind it.
4. What is the emotion behind it.
Be brutally honest with yourself when answering these questions as you consciously make choices based on your values.
If you get blocked in answering or journaling about these questions ,get overwhelmed and are no longer able to focus, then take a break from it all . Have cup of tea coffee or beverage of your choice, close your eyes for awhile and visualize yourself in another setting, go for a walk, exercise—to recenter and refocus yourself.
Below are some questions to reflect upon and journal about when contemplating and choosing a job or exploring a career option:
1. Why do I want to go in this direction with my career or want to do this job.
2. What is my motivation for choosing this career or job.
3. What is my thinking behind it.
4. What is the emotion behind it.
Be brutally honest with yourself when answering these questions as you consciously make choices based on your values.
If you get blocked in answering or journaling about these questions ,get overwhelmed and are no longer able to focus, then take a break from it all . Have cup of tea coffee or beverage of your choice, close your eyes for awhile and visualize yourself in another setting, go for a walk, exercise—to recenter and refocus yourself.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Emotional Intelligence and leadership role
The key to success is good leadership . Good leadership from many perspectives is the ability to handle your emotions and the emotions of others.
This ability encompasses being able to process other people's emotions-- to perceive, use and understand and regulate emotions.
Perceiving emotions is considered to be a critical attribute for leadership in the 21st century.
In a management/ leadership role, there has to be a strong emphasis on communication and emotion is a form of communication.
Therefore, a person's emotional intelligence is strongly connected to a person's leadership strength.
As the author: " A Year in Serendipity: A Journalling
Workbook"http://tinyurl.com/serendipityjournal , I recommend this journal as part of this journey to developing your emotional intelligence for your leadership role.
This ability encompasses being able to process other people's emotions-- to perceive, use and understand and regulate emotions.
Perceiving emotions is considered to be a critical attribute for leadership in the 21st century.
In a management/ leadership role, there has to be a strong emphasis on communication and emotion is a form of communication.
Therefore, a person's emotional intelligence is strongly connected to a person's leadership strength.
As the author: " A Year in Serendipity: A Journalling
Workbook"http://tinyurl.com/serendipityjournal , I recommend this journal as part of this journey to developing your emotional intelligence for your leadership role.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Scrapbooking- a career development tool
As a writer of a one-of-a-kind journaling workbook “ A Year in Serendipity” http://
tinyurl.com/serendipityjournal -written to help people in their life and career goal
attainment, I have come to experience first-hand some of the unique insights
regarding how to use scrapbooking in both my professional and personal life.
There are ,some very inspiring practical reasons for scrapbooking.
It can be a multifaceted technique/approach to career and life management and planning. For example, it can be applied in creating professional autobiographies, diaries for self-development and even as base for a professional career portfolio/webfolio/ blog.
Scrapbooking, in a life skills sense, can be employed to focus on motivating and
inspiring moments , and even to retrace a journey to life transforming/ life –changing moment(s). For instance, you can immortalize a pictorial of a significant historical event you were involved in , or an episode of personal achievement that changed your life forever-- making you stand out in an interview!
Scrapbooking can be one way to figure out who you used to be, how you got to be who you are today, while at the same , rediscovering the journey that got you there. This kind of info is practical when fielding those self-reflective interview questions.
The possibilities for its uses and benefits for career development can be limitless.
tinyurl.com/serendipityjournal -written to help people in their life and career goal
attainment, I have come to experience first-hand some of the unique insights
regarding how to use scrapbooking in both my professional and personal life.
There are ,some very inspiring practical reasons for scrapbooking.
It can be a multifaceted technique/approach to career and life management and planning. For example, it can be applied in creating professional autobiographies, diaries for self-development and even as base for a professional career portfolio/webfolio/ blog.
Scrapbooking, in a life skills sense, can be employed to focus on motivating and
inspiring moments , and even to retrace a journey to life transforming/ life –changing moment(s). For instance, you can immortalize a pictorial of a significant historical event you were involved in , or an episode of personal achievement that changed your life forever-- making you stand out in an interview!
Scrapbooking can be one way to figure out who you used to be, how you got to be who you are today, while at the same , rediscovering the journey that got you there. This kind of info is practical when fielding those self-reflective interview questions.
The possibilities for its uses and benefits for career development can be limitless.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Brainding and photo collages
Branding is sticking with something you will have a monopoly on and standing out in a positive proactive way.
To help you in this endeavour, do a photo collage to inspire and motivate yourself. Place it where you will see it often and it will be imprinted on your mind.
Try it out and you will find it quite effective.
To help you in this endeavour, do a photo collage to inspire and motivate yourself. Place it where you will see it often and it will be imprinted on your mind.
Try it out and you will find it quite effective.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Aligning Your Occupation With Your Inner Core
Your career interest is not what others expect of you but what You enjoy.
Enhancing your quality of life often means pursuing your passion or aligning your occupation with your inner core-- personal values and goals.
Have you ever read the book by Janet Bray Attwood, Co-Author of the NY Times Bestseller "The Passion Test - The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Life Purpose" or gone to the site and taken the free passion test to explore YOU.: http://www.thepassiontest.com/TPT/Free/index.cfm?
Good luck pursuing your passion(s)!
Enhancing your quality of life often means pursuing your passion or aligning your occupation with your inner core-- personal values and goals.
Have you ever read the book by Janet Bray Attwood, Co-Author of the NY Times Bestseller "The Passion Test - The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Life Purpose" or gone to the site and taken the free passion test to explore YOU.: http://www.thepassiontest.com/TPT/Free/index.cfm?
Good luck pursuing your passion(s)!
Monday, January 25, 2010
A Reflective Task for 2010
As we continue into the new year of 2010, it is important to reevaluate your interests, values, ethics, hidden talents and passions – to take a look at where we are in our professional and personal lives..
There are various sites that can help us in this reflective task. . Some of these are free and others are not.
For example you can take MAPP at http://www.assessment.com or you can review your
results online! Simply logon using your email and password. And if you haven't used your free MAPP Match, take advantage of it at:
http://www.assessment.com/MemberCenter/Matching/Onet.asp
There are various sites that can help us in this reflective task. . Some of these are free and others are not.
For example you can take MAPP at http://www.assessment.com or you can review your
results online! Simply logon using your email and password. And if you haven't used your free MAPP Match, take advantage of it at:
http://www.assessment.com/MemberCenter/Matching/Onet.asp
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