General life improvement – Page 9

Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day

18 January 201122 November 2010 by Jen Waller

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken” (Oscar Wilde) November 24th is celebrate your unique talent day. So it seems like it is an appropriate time to share with you some thoughts about uniqueness and talent. It’s not at all uncommon to loose track, or even not acknowledge, the gifts that you have naturally, by focusing … Read more

Stressful Tuesday?

18 January 201115 November 2010 by Jen Waller

“A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety. ” (Aesop Fables) I’ve just read an article that claimed that 11.45am on a Tuesday is the most stressful time of the week. While I may not be posting this on a Tuesday I thought it would be appropriate to share … Read more

World Kindness Day

28 August 20228 November 2010 by Jen Waller

“Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” (Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.) I’ve just read that 13th November is World Kindness Day and two thoughts occurred to me: Several years ago I read a book that amused me … Read more

What do you believe?

18 January 20111 November 2010 by Jen Waller

This was originally posted on www.YourChangingDirection.com at a time I was doing a project that involved working with job seekers.

“Out of our beliefs are born deeds: out of our deeds we form habits; out of our habits grows our character; and on our character we build our destiny.”
(Henry Hancock)

I was preparing for the first teleclass in the Confidence for Job Seekers program that’s happening later today. The topic is Dealing with Interview Nerves and I’ve come across some interesting comments and beliefs about interview nerves. These things can easily get in peoples way of doing their best.

This is not something confined to the subject of being nervous at interviews. I often find that what is keeping someone stuck in a situation or from taking action is a unrecognised belief.

Once upon a time …

18 January 201125 October 2010 by Jen Waller

“Life itself is the most wonderful fairytale of all.” Hans Christian Andersen I love to read autobiographies to find out how people do what they do. It doesn’t have to be a celebrity to spark my interest. As TV host Phillip Schofield, who has spent the vast proportion of his (to date) 26 year career … Read more

“Failure” Does Not Have To Be Soul Destroying!

18 January 201118 October 2010 by Jen Waller

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”
(Michael Jordan, who is aclaimed as one, if not the, greatest basketball players of all time.)

Many of the reports I saw about the Oscars mentioned the fact that this was Kate Winslet’s 6th nomination. Yet this was only the first time that she won. Watching her acceptance speech, talking about imagining this moment as a child, it did not appear that her previous “failures” were detracting from her success this time around.

I also recently came across a story of a Korean who has, so far, failed their driving test over 700 times. What struck me the most when I read this was the focus and determination to reach the end goal of passing the test and driving.

What Gets Measured Gets Done!

8 June 202411 October 2010 by Jen Waller

I was being told a story the other day about some advice a now retired gentleman had been given before starting his first job. When working with statistics, the advice stated, the very first thing to do is ask your boss what they want to prove.

When working in the corporate world, and particularly with sales, it was second nature to not only have targets but also a measurement of what was classed as important to that business.

To borrow an advertising slogan, you’ve got to be in it to win it. One of the ways that people can stay stuck in a situation is that they stop (or don’t start) taking action.

Taking Time to Use What Works

18 January 20114 October 2010 by Jen Waller

I was taking a break from something I was writing the other day, when I caught a snippet of some sort of historical reality show. It involved the participants living in Victorian conditions and those taking part in the show were learning lots of new ways of doing things. One of the participants commented that the one thing that struck them most is how revolutionary they found the various resources we have in the modern day as they provide us with so much more time.

As I watched, I was reminded of the quote “Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.” (Churchill) So often people learn about history and not from it. Prior to my break from the writing I had been struggling to word a particular section. Recalling days gone by and the various time saving resources I already knew I realised that I wasn’t actually using what, for me, makes creating writing easier.