Business Coaching and Training Cork Ireland

Posts Tagged ‘Procrastination’

Since this is such a personal experience I thought I could share with you how I managed to break the barrier of my comfort zone today.

As a woman who takes regular exercise, I begin to feel restless if I have missed a few days. This is simply because my body is used to being dragged out onto the street and pushed for anything from 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Having been on holidays in March for 3 weeks, I was travelling light and knew there would not be much opportunity to find appropriate times and places in order to exercise. I had my husband to consider also, and as we would be travelling for 3 weeks, it would be unfair to have to focus on running in a safe place for over an hour. I made the Executive decision to take 3 weeks off running, knowing that it would be replaced with healthy daily hiking (or tramping as it is known in New Zealand) and a healthy diet. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, it’s that time of year again. And yes, it can be very stressful.

• Have you left your card sending until the last minute?
• Have you left your Santa buying until the last minute?
• Have you left your Christmas Shopping until the last minute?
• Have you left buying the tree until the last minute?
• Have you left everything until the last minute?

If you answer YES to any of the above questions, then read on to learn a few tips on managing your stress better this year.

“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday”  ~ Don Marquis

Now, for a fact – we can only experience the present moment. YES, we can really only actually experience every moment once. Everything else is imagined, whether past or future.

So if you are stressing about past Christmases, or any past event, then you are relying on memory to provide the stress factors. Those stress factors can limit us in our everyday tasks. If you are stressing about the coming Christmas, or any future event, then you are just imagining it and creating your own stress factors. Based on what? Future event stress is normally based on previous events, so we are back in the past, which is imaginary, remember?

So how do we DO procrastination? How do we manage to NOT do the important things? How do we let stress effect our wishes and goals?

Here we go, a little exercise for you:

1. Get into the role of Christmas shopping, decorating the house, planning the dinner, handling the in-Laws
2. See yourself in that role, doing those things
3. Now imagine the PERFECT day shopping, decorating or planning
4. What happens in that day? What do you see, what do you hear? What do you notice? What do you smell? What are you feeling? (really, really get into the feeling of it, remember this is your PERFECT day)
5. What exactly happens in that day? And when?
6. Now simply, imagine how you can grasp as much of that as possible. What can you tap into, what can you access?

That’s it! The rest doesn’t matter, because it’s negative, and we want positive don’t we?

Do this exercise a few times and feel the difference about the situation now. How does it feel different? Keep those feelings in mind and remind yourself of your perfect day when it’s time to do that thing!

“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task” ~ William James

*If you would like to learn more about tackling procrastination and the benefits of coaching, please contact Elaine through the Contact Page or by telephone at +353 (0)86 1955660. Be the CHANGE you want to be in 2012!*

Planning an event can be tremendously stressful for some. I have had clients stress over Christamas to the point where complete sabotage and failure are guaranteed. So how can we plan for an event and ensure that we don’t miss anything important?

We can write a list – what to do, what to buy, when to do it. This list can be in the form of chronological importance or priority importance. So let’s back track a bit and assume you are already struggling with ideas and the basic plan, not to mind the where, when, why and how-to?

Very often, someone wants to plan a surprise or event for a friend or loved-one. This can prove an almost debilitating exercise for many; so what I want to to is look at ONE possibility that can help your life to be easier, less stressful and ultimately organised. This will ensure that you enjoy the event as much as the person or people you are organising it for.

Because we are now over the indulgence of Christmas, and have embarked on a journey of resolutions and lying low for January, we do need some indulgence to get some spark back. Read the rest of this entry »

This month we are running with a great series of TOP 10 tips for your business survival for the traditional break, and on into the New Year.

TIP NO 2:

H ~ HOLIDAY

Make sure you factor in some R&R into the holiday period. Some Business owners will use the “holiday” period as a perfect procrastination and distraction excuse to delve into tasks that were not meant for December, or that have been put on the long finger and have suddenly become urgent. Be aware of Read the rest of this entry »

We have just gained an hour over the weekend, so this may be your first day back to work after the ghouls and spooks of Hallowe’en last evening. Have you wondered what to do with the clock going back an hour yesterday?

So what can you do with your extra hour? Read the rest of this entry »

I was driving around Dublin a couple of years ago, and realised I had been using the same route to go to Holles Street for months. As I sat in traffic I wondered – is there another route or even a shortcut to where I wanted to go?
I took out my map and mapped a few different routes to take. I noticed after taking a few of them, there were better routes on certain days or even certain times of day, depending on schools and hospitals on the various routes.
It just goes to show, to be informed is a great thing. But this knowledge was from driving a regular route.
It got me thinking about life – do we always take the same routes? Do we wonder about shortcuts? If we did learn about a shortcut, HOW SOON would we implement it, if at all???
I have often heard people saying – “well I know this way, so I’ll just stay with it”, “it would take too much time to try and find a better way”, “I would have to leave earlier to look for a shortcut”.
FINE – stay the way you are, that is the choice. And don’t get me started about choices (another day my friends).
The point is, we ALWAYS have a choice – to stay where we are, or to move forward.
Have you ever learned or been told about a short cut? Did you try it? Did you continue the way you were going?

I would love to hear your comments. I feel this is a very important issue that pops up in coaching sessions.

Much Love,
Elaine