Taking time for YOU!

My clients often tell me that one of the added benefits of having coaching with me, that they hadn’t considered before they started, is that their coaching sessions can often be the only time in their busy week that they feel able to step back and truly focus 100% on themselves.  Be honest, how often could you say that you allow yourself to do just that?

A lot of the time we get so busy ‘doing’ that we forget about ‘being’.

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This was a revelation of sorts for me some years back.  I had something fantastically inspiring to aim for.  I had the focus, I had the drive to work really hard, and I was making good progress.  And yet, I ended up feeling ill, stressed and fairly disillusioned.  I began to think that if this was what having stretching goals was about, I wasn’t sure I wanted them after all!

Talking through how I felt with a good friend one day, I was brought up short when she said “oh yes, you’ve become a ‘human doing’ instead of a ‘human being'”.  I thought about that all the way home.

As I reflected on the previous few months, I could think of very few times when I wasn’t ‘doing’ and even fewer times when I’d consciously decided to take time out and ‘just be’.

How much of your time do you spend ‘doing’ and how much do you spend ‘being’?  If you had to divide a circle up with how much time you give over to each, what would it look like?  How big would your ‘being’ slice be? Be absolutely honest with yourself.

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With our busy lives and time-poor society it can seem nearly impossible to take more time for ourselves, but at what cost do we choose not to?  My decision those few years back was to invest more time in myself, and I’m certain that I’m more productive as a result.  I get more done in my ‘doing’ time now than I ever did when I was ‘doing’ every waking second of the day.  Plus, my ultimate decision was that it couldn’t all be about the doing and the destination or I’d miss the journey altogether.

So as we roll into the next season, what time can you make for yourself to just ‘be’?  When can you next set aside an hour or two, a whole day or even more than that, to relax and recharge?  Imagine how much better you will feel when you do?

Could you do with some regular time set aside to focus 100% on you and on making your life how you want it?

I have some availability for coaching clients, we just need to fix some dates if and when you want to get started. Get in touch today.

Maggie Currie 

Creedence – Confidence for You

International Confidence Coach, Motivational Speaker, Author

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Let go of regret

Holding on to regret is like dragging the weight of the past with us everywhere we go.  It drains our energy, leaving us less available for life in the present because we are constantly feeding our old issues.  

Doing this can cause illness the same way watering a dead plant creates decay.  We know that something new and beautiful can grow in its place, if we only prepare the soil and plant the right seeds.

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We also know that we create our lives from our thoughts, so dwelling on the past may actually recreate a situation in our lives where we are forced to make the same choices again and again. We can choose to move on right now by applying what we have learned to the present.

Forgiveness is the soothing balm that can heal regret. If we can forgive ourselves and any other people involved, we will find that a great weight is lifted and we begin to feel better in ourselves.

One of the ways I have of doing this is by replaying the event in my mind, a bit like watching a film. I choose a new ending using all the new information and learning that I now have. I imagine that I have actually gone back into the past and made this change, and then I say goodbye to it. I release my former self and anyone else involved with a hug and bring the forgiveness and love back with me to the present.

Since we are usually our harshest critics, it is amazing how powerfully healing it can be to offer ourselves love.

Four Women Friends at the Beach
Keeping our minds and our energy fully in the present allows us to fuel our physical and emotional healing and well-being today. This action frees our energy to create the dreams we dream for the future. By taking responsibility and action in the present, we can release our hold on the past and let that weight go.

I have some availability for coaching clients, we just need to fix some dates if and when you want to get started. Get in touch today.

Maggie Currie 

Creedence – Confidence for You

International Confidence Coach, Motivational Speaker, Author

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Underneath the noise – Hearing the whisper

You may have noticed that when you want to speak to someone in a noisy, crowded room, the best thing to do is lean close and whisper. Yelling in an attempt to be heard over the noise of the room generally hurts your throat and adds to the chaos.

Have you noticed that you inner voice whispers to you all the time? If we want to hear it, no matter what is going on around us, or even inside us, we can always tune in to that soft voice underneath the surrounding noise.

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It is generally true that voices in our heads that make us feel panicky or afraid are of questionable authority. They may be voices we associate with our childhood or from our culture, and they only speak half-truths.

The other voice that whispers reassurances that everything is fundamentally okay simply delivers its message with quiet confidence. Once we hear it, we know it speaks the truth.

We will find that our own communications in the world begin to be influenced by the quiet certainty of this voice.  As we align ourselves more with this quiet confidence, we become an extension of the whisper, penetrating the noise of the world and creating more peace, trust and confidence.

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I have some availability for coaching clients, we just need to fix some dates if and when you want to get started. Get in touch today.

Maggie Currie 

Creedence – Confidence for You

International Confidence Coach, Motivational Speaker, Author

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Your confidence diary.

A great way to boost your confidence is to keep a confidence diary.  It is a smart tool to remind yourself just how good you really are and what you have to be thankful for and pleased about in your life right now.

It is something I used to rebuild my confidence after going through a toxic relationship, divorce and learning to be me again.

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Either buy yourself a notebook or a day to view diary and once a week for a month jot down your answers to the following confidence questions.

Don’t give me any excuses about you haven’t got the time to do it! Take just 10 minutes per week, sit down and jot down your thoughts to:

  • What have I got to be grateful for in my life right now?

  • What am I happy about in my life right now?

  • Why am I happy about these things?

  • What did I accomplish last week?

  • What am I excited about in my life right now?

  • Who do I love and appreciate in my life? Who do I like hanging around? Why?

  • Who loves and appreciates me for what I am? Warts ‘n all!

Answer these questions honestly at the start of each week and it will set you up for success.

Getting our lives back after divorce

If you need a booster midweek, then by all means answer them again whenever you want to feel centred and remind yourself of what you have got going for yourself in your life right now. You can do this whilst enjoying a nice cup of tea or coffee.

I have some availability for coaching clients, we just need to fix some dates if and when you want to get started. Get in touch today.

Maggie Currie 

Creedence – Confidence for You

International Confidence Coach, Motivational Speaker, Author

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Friends and family who sap your positive energy

The people with whom you have the most contact and who hang around you will have either a positive or negative effect on your levels of self-esteem and confidence.

We all know people who are positive, happy and joyful to be around. Have you noticed how they make you feel?

They make you feel the same as them, happy and positive! They can put zest into a boring atmosphere and can fill the room with a positive, ‘can do’ vibe that has a knock on effect onto everyone else.

Four Women Friends at the Beach

We also know of those people who could moan for England!

According to them they never had the opportunities, they are always putting people down, they don’t like other people to be successful, they are jealous and are negative thinkers – and so much more!

These people drain the energy from the room, and bring everyone down to their level, a million miles away from the level that YOU want to be operating on.

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Some family members can be a lot like this, but you can always choose your friends, you can never choose your family!

What can you do to make sure that the people you have most contact with empower and support what you stand for rather than bring you down all of the time?

You have the power to choose who you have contact with. Ideally you want happy, vibrant and positive people. If there are people who are constantly draining our positive energy you have a couple of options.  You can tell them how you feel and if they are really good friends they will respect your wishes and may change their behaviour. If they drift into the negative again, try to ignore it.  Or if they aren’t really good friends, they will drift away and find someone else to drain.

The same can be said for your family.  Your more mature relatives have been conditioned for many, many years and are a different generation.  Appreciate where they have come from whilst being selective with the information that filters through to your brain.  You have the same choices as with your friends for the younger relatives, tell them how you feel and they will either change something or drift away.

Don’t attach any guilt to your decisions, as it is your life and if you are tired of the negativity, it is time to do something about it.

You may well find that you make new friends who are positive and upbeat and some other members of your family may reappear who have also removed themselves from negative relatives.

I have some availability for coaching clients, we just need to fix some dates if and when you want to get started. Get in touch today.

Maggie Currie 

Creedence – Confidence for You

International Confidence Coach, Motivational Speaker, Author

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Self Awareness

When I was in my teens and even up to my early 40s I had very little self-awareness.  I plodded along doing what I was told to do, manipulated by so many people.  I was so totally not self-aware I didn’t even notice that I was living my life on other people’s terms.

It is only since I have trained to be a life coach that I have really discovered myself and discovered my own self awareness.  I have found that to be able to grow into my own self-awareness I have to understand my feelings and emotions.  This was quite a difficult journey for me, as I have suppressed feelings and emotions for many years.  The reason – I was told by my parents when I was a child that I should be seen and not heard.  I was told that I should not express anger or display any emotion.  And so I learned to repress them.

Having this understanding now after learning so much about my feelings and emotions and rediscovering who I am really am, I know that I can express my feelings and emotions. And this is a huge step for me towards self-awareness.  But what does self-awareness do for me? What are the benefits to me?  Being self-aware has given me the opportunity and freedom to change those things I want to change about myself and create the life that I want.  I now don’t allow others to manipulate me.  I live my life on my terms.  I am seen and heard and I do express my feelings and emotions.

 New for 2013. From confusion to clarity – Becoming ME again

The more clarity I get about who I am and what I want, and of course why I want it, the more I empower myself to consciously make those wants a reality. But, how do I get this clarity? I turn to the expert – ME.  I know more about myself than anyone else, I know I have been manipulated and by whom.  I know I have suppressed my feelings and emotions,  and I know why.  And I have got to know myself even better over the past few years by becoming so much more self-aware.  I am, of course, still learning.

To get the clarity I want I have learned to ask myself questions and expect specific answers. The more specific my answers, the more impact they have on my life and then I have a much clearer picture of  me.  Of course, there are times when my answer is ‘I don’t know’ and I know that is okay too.  I give myself the freedom to take a wild guess and this allows me to carry on.  What I have discovered is that I really do know more than I ever thought I did.

Honesty is vital in my answers to myself.  It will lead to my true self-awareness, but it does take a lot of courage.  It is the courage to face my fears or to face something I find difficult to accept about myself.  For instance, I know that I am impatient and want things to happen now.  I also know that when people are speaking to me I get impatient to hear the end of what they are saying, and I tend to try to finish their sentences for them.  I know this about myself and do my best to bite my tongue and not jump in with the answers.  By being totally honest with myself I take ownership of my actions, thoughts and feelings and find those beliefs that are no longer serving me. Those beliefs can then be discarded, altered or whatever feels right for me.

I find that sometimes I do slip up and give an answer that perhaps I think I should give, rather than what I really know is right.  That means I am giving answers from my head rather than getting in touch with my feelings and getting the answer there. To get out of my head again, I take several deep breaths and start to listen to my body, to notice where it is hurting and breathe into that place.  This helps me to balance myself and to find the answers I need, and they come from inside me rather than from my head.

How do I know I am in a relationship that is bad for me?

I know that whatever I discover about myself I can handle with ease and acceptance.  I trust that whatever I discover about myself will in some way lead to a greater sense of me and increased self-awareness.

I have found that practising listening to my body has enabled me to get to grips with my emotions and feelings in a way that I have never been able to do before.  And of course I am learning every day more and more about myself too.

I have some availability for coaching clients, we just need to fix some dates if and when you want to get started. Get in touch today.

Maggie Currie 

Creedence – Confidence for You

International Confidence Coach, Motivational Speaker, Author

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Travelling alone and enjoying it ! – Guest Blog by Gwen Perret

Maggie wrote me a guest blog a month ago titled « After Divorce, Travel ! », and that got me thinking. Of course, I am convinced of all the good things that comes out of traveling, especially in times when we need to reconstruct ourselves. But as a female travel lover and travel PA, I am concerned about the issues of women traveling alone : safety, boredom, social acceptance…

 Yes, I believe that traveling is essential on a self-reconstruction journey, but only if all conditions are put together to make the traveller feels safe. Feeling safe as a woman solo traveller, or as women traveling together in a group, means feeling free and safe wherever you go, whether it is physical integrity or not feeling judged or looked at, totally out of place.

 Of course, you always have the travel with singles option, which can be fun of you are ready to meet someone new in your life, outgoing… But what if you are just not in the dating mood, or just not that kind of person ? What if you just want to enjoy a place you have never been too and want to enjoy your new “you” just being by yourself ?

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 Well, that is possible. Good news, huh ? All you have to do is make sure, before you go, to pay attention to the following details.

 1)     Choose your destination carefully. Go somewhere you have always wanted to go but never could. This needs to be YOUR choice. It might not be everyone’s choice, but who cares ? When I was younger I spent a year abroad in Alaska, I was not 18 yet, and most people thought I had lost my mind. Who, on earth, would leave a great school, successful studies, a family and everything to go abroad for a year ? And moreover to Alaska ? Well I did. I have always loved far away, unknown places. And I am so glad I made it, no matter how discouraging people were before I left. So open Google Maps and choose.

2)     Choose your place of stay carefully. Now of course I would not recommend that you go spend a week in Gao, Mali right now. That might have to wait. But there are lots of places you can go safely. And then you can choose a nice district or town. You should know that some networks are specializing for solo travellers. Whether you prefer a hotel or a B and B, spend time in getting to know the area and the owners. Most of the B and B owners are passionate people and will help you with everything you need to know. Some of them even have special weeks for solo travellers, everything being planned to them to feel very comfortable.

3)     Choose your activities and options. Make sure you do not end up in a crowded restaurant for Valentine’s Day, or in the middle of young couples diving during their honeymoon. You know what I mean. Being the only single one, moreover the only recently divorced one can be a devastating experience. Here again, some networks will organize activities for solo travellers that have nothing to do with dating activities.

4)     Do not be shy. The earth is full of people who want to share experiences, even if it is just a few words on the weather, the landscape, the wine… Enjoy those moments sharing time with locals or other tourists. And if you are afraid of being alone, bring company ! Why not organize an all solo tour ? Whether it is an all divorced women, or mixing men and women… As long as you base it on a shared passion, for an activity, a product or a region, you will enjoy the company, be in the same state of mind…

5)     Make sure you give a full detailed planning to someone you trust at home : a family member, a good friend… Someone who will be to check on you on a settled basis, one a day, once every other day… You decide. A daily text or email is always a good solution to make people feel safe.

6)     Let it go and HAVE FUN !

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 Yes, let it go and have fun, because at the end that is all it is about. When you will be planning your trip carefully, at some point you will have to just trust yourself and enjoy. Open your eyes, your ears, talk to people, discover, get out of your comfort zone. The world is yours, take advantage of it.

 I know that planning a whole trip can be quite something for people while they also have to deal with their daily life. If you need help planning a bespoke trip, whether it is just for you or for a group, if you need someone to make sure you will be safe and who can check on you everyday, if you need someone to rely on in case of emergency while you travel, if you want a private woman travel guide with great ideas… I am here, that is my job, and I will be delighted to help with planning your vacation.

Gwendolin Perrett

Personal travel and event advisor at SensationElle

Our guest blogger, Gwen, taught for 4 years after graduating from anthropology. Then decided it was time to do what she really loved; travel. She recently became a Personal Travel Agent, mostly selling France and Europe to foreigners, but she also works on other destinations. She specializes in bespoke travel and events, making sure that her clients get the best experiences with no worries. This new job allows her to travel as much as she wants with her hubby and doggy and still be available for her privileged clients. Her office fits in a hand luggage : a Mac book, an iPhone, her notebook and a pen, and a few SensationnElle gift cards ready to be sent! Get in touch if you would like to know more information!

If you would like to contact Gwen her contact details are below:

www.sensationnelle.net

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Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate…..it is a lack of self belief

I know how it feels to have feelings of inadequacy.  I feared that I wasn’t good enough, that others didn’t think I was good enough either.  I doubted by abilities and whether I actually knew anything at all.  Those feelings made my body feel heavy and sluggish, they made my brain all fuggy and hard to get going.  I felt totally unmotivated and really had to force myself to keep appointments and to do all the usual everyday things like looking after myself properly. I didn’t want to prepare any meals and therefore wasn’t eating properly. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate… it is really that we have little self belief. 

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The lack of self belief is something that had become a habit because I was always told that I was average when I was growing up and that I would never amount to anything.  And having been told that so many times, I believed it.  I believed it for many, many years until I started reading about self-development and coaching.  Something clicked for me,  and I decided that I probably do more than I originally thought.

I began to take courses in coaching, corporate coaching, NLP, confidence coaching and I discovered that not only did I love this work, I was good at it. No – I was very good at it indeed. And I loved every minute of it and still do. I am passionate about helping other people to develop as themselves and to boost their confidence and self belief.

Now I thought that after achieving all those diplomas, and all the many hours and days of hard work I had done to achieve them, I would get rid of those feelings of being inadequacy. But I was wrong. They all came back again and it was like reliving the same old behaviour patterns again.  What could I do?

I trained in emotion based coaching as an addition to my already extensive qualifications and I learned to look at my old unexpressed feelings which were affecting my life and learned to acknowledge them, deal with them and this allowed me to live my life as me in a much more confident way.  Working on myself I again had those feelings of inadequacy, but this time found the solutions to make those nasty feelings go away. I made a list of all the things that I do creatively and a list of my innovativity. That took some thinking about but I did it, and it really worked.  I am feeling so much more confident now in myself and who I am and what I have to offer to myself, my husband, my friends-in-deed and of course my clients.

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Getting good responses from the people I coach whilst they are getting great results makes such a difference to my confidence levels. I know that I am a brilliant coach with a lot to offer my clients and I know that I do a grand job with them.

I take each day as it comes and I boost my confidence by reading my lists of creativity and innovativity, watch the results of my clients and support people in the coaching community and know that I am confident in my abilities and in me. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate…..it is a lack of self belief.  It is very common for people going through divorce to lose their self-belief and that is where I can help.

 I have some availability for coaching clients, we just need to fix some dates if and when you want to get started. Get in touch today.

Maggie Currie 

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Unqualified vs Qualified Coaches

There are thousands of ‘coaches’ out there who have never been trained to coach, have never been coached themselves and have absolutely no idea where to begin or indeed where to end.

Equally, there are a similar number of ‘coaches’ out there who are qualified and have never been coached themselves and also have absolutely no idea what they are doing.

I can only speak from my own experience, and I have found that learning how to be a coach is very much different from being a coach. And being a coach means drawing on all learnings and experiences accumulated throughout my life.

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How so you may well ask.  Well I have trained with five different coach training providers since 2004 and all have their own ways of interpreting coaching.

For instance, one said that once I had passed their diploma course I was a trained life coach.  That may well have been true, but the course itself gave very little insight into the myriad of different strategies that can, and are, used in coaching.  On passing the course I was now a qualified life coach.

Another taught me all I needed to know to become corporate coach, but again left me short of knowledge and experience when it came to working with organisations that varied in the ways they operated. On passing their course I was now a qualified corporate coach.

I have learned over the years that my life experiences count just as much as all the coach training.  Listening to my clients and knowing when to ask the right question came from practise.  It is nothing that can be learned from a course or a book, it comes with experience of working with so many different people.

I love being a coach, it doesn’t feel like a job to me.  I find it so rewarding when I see the ‘penny drop’ and my clients get it, take action and change their lives for the better. It is something that I just love getting out of bed for every morning.

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All the training I have undertaken has had its uses, and I always learned something new and worthwhile, and I can honestly say that I am highly qualified and experienced as a coach. 

I enjoy being coached, and in fact work with several coaches where we all coach each other, supervise, teach and learn.  It works very well as each has something different to bring to the table.  The fact that we are spread out over the world in the UK, USA and Australia causes a few time zone headaches, but we usually work it all out between us, and Skype is a fabulous tool.

So who wins in the Unqualified Coach vs Qualified Coach competition? I don’t think there is a definitive answer.  It all depends on the coach and the outcome you want.  If the outcome you get is satisfactory to you, then I am not sure it really matters.  I know there will be lots of you who will disagree, and I would love to hear from you.

My speciality is coaching professional business women who are going through, or have been through, divorce, life trauma, redundancy etc.  The type of woman who has to look perfect on the outside to give her presentation to the board, but who is falling to bits on the inside, and the cracks are beginning to show.  The fantastically successful outcomes my clients have had are just wonderful.

I have some availability for coaching clients, we just need to fix some dates if and when you want to get started. Get in touch today.

Maggie Currie 

Creedence – Confidence for You

International Confidence Coach, Motivational Speaker, Author

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Do you need to change your surname after divorce?

There are a million reasons why it is advisable to stick with your married name after divorce.  There are also a million reasons why you could change your surname after divorce.

If you have children, it can make it easier when dealing with schools to keep the same surname as the children have.  Although, in this day and age, it is very common for children to have different surnames from their parents.  For instance, when two families merge there will be Mr & Mrs X and their 6 children.  3 of the children have come from Mrs X’s previous marriage, and 3 of the children have come from Mr X’s previous marriage.  So there will be Mr & Mrs X with children X and children Y.

It can cause some hassle with paperwork, but other than that, it is not a problem.

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When there are no children involved, it may be that you may want to change your surname.  You can choose to revert to your maiden name, if you like that name, or you can choose another surname entirely.  Changing your name can be done relatively easily via deed poll.  You will have to provide several forms of documentation to prove you are who you say you are, and that you not going to commit fraud. But once that is done, and the fee paid of course, you can go ahead.  You can find out more information from their website.

You could completely reinvent yourself if you chose to. Pick a name that you have always loved and that you think will suit you.  If you are not sure, then try a few out for size.  Write down the names you think of, say them out loud, see if they fit.  If they don’t then think of some more until you find one you really like.

There will be banks, credit cards etc., to inform, but once that is all done you can live happily with your new name.

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Some people want to revert to their maiden name, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing that either.  It is a matter of personal choice.

There are, of course those, who didn’t change their surname when they got married, and therefore nothing needs to change now, unless they want it to…………….

Whatever decision you make, be sure it is the right one for you.  Don’t allow other people to influence you either way.  It is your life, your name and it is you who has to live with it.

I have some availability for coaching clients, we just need to fix some dates if and when you want to get started. Get in touch today.

Maggie Currie 

Creedence – Confidence for You

International Confidence Coach, Motivational Speaker, Author

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