Overcoming challenges

 

 

 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.

 

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.

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

To honour international women's day 2014

Don’t walk ahead of me and be above me. Don’t walk behind me and be below me. Instead, walk beside me and be my equal in heart, mind and spirit.

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.

New Years' Resolutions

To continue with the theme of developing your own niche, we can try looking at this New Year by doing something different each day and getting out of our comfort zone. Complacency is the death of creativity.... So try a new approach to New Year's resolutions and check out this site... www.365thingsin365days.com. This is one way of breaking out of the norm of being mediocre. Wishing everyone all the best for 2013. Happy New Year !

Olympic Fever

The Olympics begin on the 27th... this Friday... We, the world, can see first hand the truth of the statement--- you are the power of your dreams-- by all those who are participating and who have worked so hard to get there. Let us experience the Olympic spirt they will personify and exercise it in our daily personal and professional lives. Let the Games begin!

Your own Arab Spring...

Today is the one- year anniversary of the beginning of the Arab Spring movement in Egypt and the Middle East. Is it time for you to begin your own Arab Spring in your professional life?

Start off the New Year with your memoirs

Writing your memoirs - no matter what your age may be- is one way to motivate & inspire yourself and others. You get to see how much you have accomplished & how much you have survived.

It will also help identify accomplishments that can be put in your profiles for LinkedIN, Twitter, VisualCV, and YouTube video.

What a wonderful way to start off a New Year.

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.

Journalling and the year 2011

As we begin a new year, I thought it might be nice to revisit the benefits of journalling in my life and in others.. Journalling is a wonderful way of seeing your life- both professionally and personally in a different light.

So here again are the main benefits of journalling:

-getting clarity re: what you want in your life.

-Creating and setting boundaries.

-Ferreting out life goals.

-Beginning a journey to walking your own pathway.

-Tapping into your intrapersonal/ retrospective side by means of reflection.

-Helping you take yourself and others through the experiential learning cycle.


-Finding hidden talents and abilities within your authentic self

-Finding the positive strengths in yourself and others, and building on them

For a great guidebook on journalling, you can check out my journalling workbook at " A Year in Serendipity: A Journalling
Workbook"http://tinyurl.com/serendipityjournal .

All the best for 2011

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.

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.

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.

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)!

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

What is Your Change Quotient? Resources

For more resources on 360 degrees Assessment and Self-Awareness:

1. Paul Copcutt—A personal branding expert: www.paulcopcutt.com .
2. Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton (2001)


I particularly recommend the book "Now, Discover Your Strengths" , because it provides an on-line code for the Strengthfinder- an assessment of your strengths/ potential talents.

You can also go to www.authentichappiness.com for a complimentary self-assessment.
3. Go Put Your Strengths to Work by Marcus Buckingham (2007)
4. One of the first books on this kind of feedback: 360 Degree Feedback: The Powerful New Model for Employee Assessment & Performance Improvement Mark R. Edwards and Ann J. Ewen. ( 1996)

What is Your Change Quotient?

Are you a driving force for Change? What is your tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty in your personal and professional life? If it is low, then it is time to work on increasing and developing your change quotient.

Can you cultivate a passion for the needed change? Can you make that tremendous effort to realize and actualize that Change? Is a passion for Change an subversive idea? Yes, indeed, you can ignite that fire within to make the changes you feel so strongly about.

Our current economic downturn means upheaval and revisions in the roles and responsibilities for companies/organizations. A significant impediment to Change is that you often hear and perceive only what you want to hear. Your auditory view of things is filtered and processed based on your own values, beliefs, prejudices, and personal history.

Behaviours that hinder embracing ambiguity and uncertainty act as blocking agents that can be touchy areas to deal with. The first step in this process of self-development for Change is creating and nurturing self-awareness. Your 360 degrees Assessment from your manager, boss, mentor or career coach can specifically target some of these behaviours.