The Organisation of Life

Organising your life isn't as easy as it sounds and I am almost at the end of a Life Coaching course that was "designed for people who are serious about transforming their life.  Learn how to take practical steps to help make important changes, effective time management, discover what motivates you, overcome procrastination, set realistic and achievable goals, make better more conscious decisions and follow through on them"...sounds too good to be true doesn't it?  Well...only a few more weeks left and I can honestly say that it hasn't delivered.

It didn't deliver because it takes more than just going to class and taking notes to make it work. You actually have to do something about it yourself!  I was very naive to think that it would work just by turning up with my new shiny A5 Original Nude Filofax and frixion pen...it is going to take a hell of a lot more than just the organisational tools to make this work!  I have since learnt this very valuable lesson!!

A brief overview of the course (ten weeks) has been as follows:

Week 1.  This saw us doing a personality quiz to find out what kind of person we were, it was very enlightening actually and it would appear that I am an ISTJ (Introverted Sensing Thinking and Judging) type - in layman's terms this means that my primary mode of living is focused internally via my five senses in a literal concrete fashion and my secondary mode is external where I deal with things rationally and logically.  Organised and methodical.  Loyal, faithful and dependable.  Obsessed by structure and doing things by the book.  Strong sense of duty.  Accountable for my actions and end up getting additional work piled on as I am too dependable for my own good.  Tremendous respect for facts.  Not naturally in tune with my own feelings or those of others.  Hard working.  Artistic.  Tremendous amount of potential, capable, logical and reasonable.  Deeply driven.  But under stress I fall into catastrophe mode where I see nothing other than what could go wrong and depress myself with visions of doom.  I'd say this is pretty spot on actually!  I'm glad I appear to have more good points than bad!!

Week 2.  Goal Setting.  We did the Wheel of Life Tree which was very interesting.  It highlighted areas where we were perhaps not spending enough time on or were not happy with.  I immediately went and did some volunteering work for the National Trust as I felt this area of 'giving back' was lacking.  It also highlighted that I didn't spend enough time on me.  It made us think of the goals we would like to achieve and the mini steps needed to reach them.

Week 3.  Self Belief.  "Whether you believe you can or you believe you can't, you're right" - Henry Ford.  This was a very interesting class, it was all about having the faith in yourself to believe that no matter what you wanted out of life you could get it with hard work and good planning.

Week 4.  Fear.  This was a horrible class.  It put me on a real downer and almost to the point of giving it all up.  It is a very necessary part of the journey though and to be able to face your demons you must first be able to acknowledge them and accept them for what they are.  I really hated this one and it was followed by a half term holiday so I had two weeks to dwell on it!!

Week 5.  Questions.  This was about the questions to ask yourself.  It focused on the fact that if you don't ask the right questions then you wont get the right answers.  Fairly straightforward but virtually impossible if you don't actually know what it is you want in the first place, which is my issue.  Still trying to figure this one out but the basis of it is that asking the right questions can change our mind from a limiting one to an empowering one.  The trick is not to ask a 'closed' question, an 'open' question is more likely to have the subconscious mind automatically searching for answers which is quite impressive.  For example - "Why can't I do this?" is a bad question, a better question would be "How could I do this more effectively?" and that gets the brain thinking of solutions.  It does actually work!

Week 6.  Positive & Negative Thinking.  This one focused on what you think is based on how you feel at the time.  Another common sense one but not something that is obvious unless someone tells you.  It also gave some added advice that if you do something you love doing, something that makes you feel good, then the response to your thoughts will change automatically.  I had experienced this the previous day when I was feeling so fed up with myself that I didn't know what to do.  In sheer boredom I found myself pedalling away on my exercise bike with my headphones in and feel good music blaring out - after 15 minutes I was in a totally different mindset and it is something that I am going to do next time I'm having an 'Eeyore moment' as it really got me out of it without massive effort.

Week 7.  Emotional Intelligence.  I'm not really sure what this one was about if I'm honest.  It seemed to be a bit of a re-hash of the fear, positive thinking and self belief classes.  Maybe it was...  

Week 8, 9 and 10 we haven't done yet.  I will do an update on that and I'm not sure what they are.

I am using my A5 Domino Snake to hold all my Life Coaching things now as I was too scared to keep taking the Original out of the house (that is now tucked away safely in a box!) and here are a few pics...

Getting stuffed!

Dashboard and portable hole punch

A poem I found and retyped

I have since done a LOT of research on goal setting and self-programming techniques I guess you could call them and the whole concept is quite fascinating!  I have enrolled myself on a Life Coach Workshop to see what it entails to be able to deliver this to other people.  Not that I'm thinking of becoming a Life Coach - I am not ready for that - but just to keep some options open, you never know what opportunity awaits :)

I picked up some good thoughts in a book I was reading the other day:

"You're so dead set on doing what you think is the right thing to do that you've actually convinced yourself it is what you want"

"You shouldn't make decisions based on what makes you feel safe.  Make your decisions on what makes you feel alive.  Life might be too short for regrets but it's far too long to live with a compromise"

They both really resonated with me.  On this little journey that I have taken in the last 7 weeks my 'goals' have changed so many times and it is based on being in my comfort zone...I need to re-assess what it is I want for sure.  I know that my studies are most definitely not what make me feel alive, but then does any study or subject do that?  I guess if I was learning to be a ski instructor or a parachute teacher then yes, that would make you feel alive (or maybe just full of adrenalin!) but alas, insurance law and liability insurance do not.  Does that make it wrong?  Does that mean that I am staying in my comfort zone?  Does that mean I am thinking it is just 'the right thing to do'?  What does it mean to 'make you feel alive'?  Is just happy in what you are doing the same thing as feeling alive?  Or does this mean your whole life in general and not just your career path?  As this is my only real issue I'm not sure where to take it from here.  There are a lot of questions that need to be asked and a lot of answers that need sourcing, it's hard to know where to start.  But start I have, and I will continue along this path until I get the answers that I need, I just hope it doesn't take too long!!

I've rambled on enough...until next time, take care xxx