Sarah's Search for Success

Green Greetings!

Instead of sending Christmas cards to everyone this year, I sent eCards and bought a couple of acres of rainforest, as you do.  Last year I did the same, although just the one acre that time - I'm going to see if I can double it each year.  Last years acre was earmarked for the Fundacion Jocotoco Rainforest Project in Ecuador, and it only turned out that my lodger had been there whilst travelling around South America a few years ago, so I even got to see photos - how cool is that?!  This years donation will go to one of the World Land Trust's latest projects in Ecuador, Brazil or India.  One of these days, not too long from now, I plan to spend some time travelling around Central & South America myself, so hopefully I'll get to visit "my" acres, along with working as a volunteer on a conservation project somewhere along the line.

Serious stuff aside, click here for an alternative "Green" greeting *grin*

Have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, a Cool Yule, or whatever you are celebrating even if it's just a break from work for a few days!

Lost

No, not the new series on TV, for my fellow Lost addicts out there - what is going on on that island?!  Nope, this is a little more personal...  For the past few weeks I've been lost on my little journey of life.  I got distracted from the path by various external and internal factors, and was wandering around aimlessly, off course and not a little confused.  Strangely enough, I didn't even realise that that was what had happened until I listened to a call from the Mindset Mastery Virtual Bootcamp.  This call was with Chris and Janet Attwood, who talked about following your passion.

It was a gentle and timely slap round the face for me!

Leaving things till the last minute...

I have just completed the pre-course test for my NLP Master Practitioner training.  This test had to be returned by today at the latest, which I chose to interpret as by midnight, so I've just scraped in!  It's been a mega-slog over the last few days, and there's no-one to blame for that but me.  I've had the test for a couple of months, so why oh why did I leave it right till the last minute before cracking on?  Just like I did with my Practitioner test.  Just like I have for so many other things in my life.  I could talk about all the challenges that I've had over the last few months, I could whine about how totally crap the last couple of weeks in particular have been... cancer scares, financial challenges, illness, big work decisions... hey, there are a ton of different "reasons" that I could cite, and all they would be is excuses.  The truth is that I have had loads of time and opportunity to just get on with it, and I chose not to.

One of the major frames of NLP is to live in Cause versus Effect.  What this means (and I know this - it's one of the questions in my test!), is living in your own personal power, empowered and taking responsibility for your actions, re-actions, behaviour and results, versus living in a dis-empowered state, blaming external factors and making excuses for your actions, re-actions, behaviour and results.

Cause = taking control over your life
Effect = giving away control

So I accept responsibility: I left it till the last minute, and I was stressed and had a tough job on my hands because of it.  In NLP terms, I continue to run my pattern.  When will I learn?  At the Master Practitioner Training I hope!

Out of the darkness and into the light

On Monday, I woke to thick fog.  I muddled my way through my usual morning routine, lights on all round the house, did a bit of work, and then set off for an Athena Network workshop in Slough.  As I drove at an appropriate pace for the weather, I wondered if I had left enough time to reach my destination without being late.  On I went, and then suddenly, I burst through the fog and into brilliant sunshine.  My spirits lifted, I could drive at a more reasonable rate of knots, and I scrabbled for my sunglasses!  I went on to reach my destination in plenty of time, arriving relaxed, at ease, and ready to make the most of the workshop.

Inspiring People

I have just read an article about Sir Robin Knox-Johnston who, at the glorious age of 67, has just set off on the Velux 5 Oceans - the longest, toughest and most dangerous single-handed round-the-world yacht race.  For those of you who don't already know, RKJ was the first person ever to sail single-handed round-the-world back in 1968/1969 (it takes a long time!), winning The Sunday Times Golden Globe.  In fact, he was the only person to complete the race, after 312 days at sea and numerous hair-raising moments.  I read his book about the race many years ago, A World of My Own, which is a great read: RKJ is the master of the understatement to say the least!  As an aspiring sailor at the time I was greatly inspired by RKJ, and although my sailing career was rather brief in comparison, I did manage one ocean crossing in the year or so I lived and worked on yachts, sailing across the Atlantic from Gran Canaria to St Lucia in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers.

Monday9am films

I was introduced to Monday9am films a few weeks ago, and have been addicted ever since.  I don't always get to watch them on Mondays, and usually not at 9am, but I do watch them, and usually get drawn in to watch more than one at a time.  So what are Monday9am films?  They are, according to the intro on the website, "weekly short films that do something".  So what?  So take a look and see for yourselves - as they also say, "You'll get this, or you won't"!  I've added a link from my "Recommended" list on the sidebar, or click here for the website.

Enjoy!

Time to focus...

After an exciting time at Alan's Masterclass last week, and a great chat this morning with one of the contacts I made there, I'm really honing in on my need to focus.  I've had such an amazing year, one of huge changes and growth, and at times, heartache and sorrow.  I've learnt a huge amount on all sorts of different subjects (though it's amazing how they all have that one recurring theme mentioned in my earlier post!), and have ideas and plans constantly buzzing through my head.  It's tremendously exciting, and also tremendously frustrating, as most projects have yet to come to fruition.  I gather this is a common theme for the entrepreneurial mind...

Challenging Times

Tomorrow I'm going to the funeral of a friend who died on the way to another friends funeral a couple of weeks ago.  If it wasn't so tragic, it'd be funny!  It's also slightly ironic to me that many people go on about how dangerous riding motorcycles is, yet neither died on bikes although they were both bikers.  One was killed by a van when out for a walk, and the other died of a massive brain haemorrhage.  OK, so the second was riding a bike at the time, and that had nothing to do with it.  She was 38.

So, I've had a rather challenging time of it over the last few weeks.  I've been in and out of the various "stages" of grief: I've been upset, sad, angry and generally p'ed off, and the emotions are still cycling around.  I've been rushed off my feet as a customer's server came out in sympathy and died, so I've been working till silly o'clock to get them set up with a new one.  I've also taken some time to stop and think about what's really important in my life and how I live it.  I've come to the following conclusions, none of which are original, they've all been said many times before, and they bear saying again:

Life is not a dress rehearsal: live each day like you mean it!
When you look back over your life, don't do it with regrets and "what ifs", do it with a great big, "Yeah, I was there, grabbed life by the throat and shook it!  Woo-hoo - what a ride!".
Tell the people that you love that you love them - you will never regret the times you did, only the times you didn't.
Ditto with hugs: hug lots, and hug like you really mean it.
When people are grieving, even if you don't know what to say, tell them.  Give them a big hug, make them a cup of tea, just let them know that you're there and that you care.
It's OK to have emotions: cry if you want to; scream, holler and shout; beat up the odd pillow; let the emotions out, don't bottle them up inside.  Of course, there's a time and a place if you can manage it...  Then pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and live life with joy and gratitude.

To absent friends.

An exercise in trust

Last night I left my motorcycle club at the same time as one of the other members, who was riding behind me.  All was well until we left the village and were out onto the dark country roads.  Things were still good right up until the moment a car came in the opposite direction, at which point I dipped my headlight from high-beam to main: suddenly no light - eek!  All I could see was the car headlights approaching me, and the road had done a magical mystery disappearing act.  Not a pleasant place to be, so I wobbled a bit and slowed down a lot as my stomach lurched.  Then the car passed by, I switched back to high-beam and I could see again.  Till the next car.

Learning to speak

Most of the people who know me would find it a tad surprising, if not downright worrying, that I've recently been on a training course all about speaking - I'm not exactly the quietest person around at the best of times!  This was a course about public speaking, though, which has not been one of my greatest strengths up until now.  Oh, I put on a good front and do pretty well at the occasional chance to introduce myself at things like business networking meetings, and have even been known to raise the odd laugh here and there, but underneath it all I've been quaking in my boots as much as the next person.  Well, not no more!