November 6, 2015 by Maggie Currie

Are you holding on to things you ‘should’ do?

A lot of people carry around with them a whole load of “baggage” or “clutter” in their minds. When I say this I mean that they are still holding onto things that they say they ‘should’ do, but they really don’t want or need to – the person who they had a row with, but neither is now speaking to the other – but both want to. The ‘coulds’ and ‘shoulds’ in your life that hold you back – you want to let go, but you don’t.

This is very common and you are definitely not alone, I have done it myself.

Are you carrying around with you a lot of emotional baggage that you could be doing without? If you were to lose that emotional weight you could be focusing on something more productive instead.

Does this resonate with you? If you are carrying around a lot of emotional baggage, I bet it has a negative influence on your confidence and self esteem.

Take a look at your life and begin to get rid of this baggage by asking yourself some questions and by completing the following exercise. In effect, what you are doing is making certain tasks “complete”, drawing a line under them and moving on. You are decluttering your mind too. The less cluttered your mind, the clearer you will be able to think.

This is one of the most important things to do I have discovered whilst working with the Three Principles – Mind, Consciousness and Thought. A new paradigm that is changing the face of coaching. They produce clearer thinking, better performance and bigger results.

Take as long or as short a time as you like to answer these questions and finish the exercise. By writing your answers down they become more real.

Get to it and watch your confidence soar!

Make a list of 10 things that you are putting up with at home
Make a list of 10 things that you are putting up with at work
Make a list of 10 things that you are putting up with in any other areas of your life

Make an action plan to get rid of or communicate to others the things that you have been putting up with. Take action!

Make a list of things that are unresolved/unfinished in your life.

Make an action plan to reduce this number! Take action!

Do you need to clear the air with anyone? If so, just do it! Life is too short!
Did you ever say that you were going to call someone or keep in touch with someone yet have done nothing about it? If yes, call them or send a card or an email to them today

Let go of as many coulds, woulds, shoulds, maybes, oughts as you can. Take action!

By completing these exercises you will be able to focus more on the here and the now. You will now be able to let go of some of the things that have been taking up your valuable attention – those things that not only knock your self esteem but take up valuable thinking time.

If the Three Principles are something that interests you and is something you would like to experience by working with me, get in touch today. I will be delighted to chat to you about how I will support you through the changes you want to make. I will deliver the goods and help you get the results you want. It’s time to really invest in yourself.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Maggie Currie

Coach, Mentor, Consultant, Speaker, Author, Survivor
Founder of MAGGIE CURRIE COACHING

Website: http://www.maggiecurrie.co.uk

Facebook: https://goo.gl/ZByKGW
Email: hello@maggiecurrie.co.uk

October 16, 2015 by Maggie Currie

How do you see yourself?

How you see yourself probably begins with you assessing yourself against a combination of the qualities and attributes of many people that you most admire. Your ‘self-ideal’ is a description of the person you would very much like to be if you could embody the qualities that you most aspire to.

It is interesting that with most people, everything they do on a day-to-day basis is affected by them comparing their activities with their view of their ideal qualities and then striving to behave consistently with them.

I have noticed that successful people are very clear about being excellent in every part of their lives, whilst unsuccessful people generally have fuzzy ideals.

When you set higher and more challenging goals, your self-ideal will change. When you set goals for the kind of person you want to be and the kind of life you want to live, your self-ideal rises and becomes a greater guiding and motivating force in your life.

Improvements in your self-ideal begin in your imagination where you are safe, there are no limits with the exception of the ones that you accept.

Think about the following:

What is your vision of the very best person you want to be?
How would you behave each day if you were already that person? Make a picture in your mind of how you look and stand, how you appear to other people? What do you hear? What do you see? What are you wearing? What is around you? Who is around you? Make the picture as bright and colourful as you can. Add sounds, smells, colours, textures.

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

Firstly, dream big dreams. Set big, exciting, challenging goals or targets for yourself. Allow yourself to imagine your wonderful life ahead.

Secondly, think about how you will act when you are living your wonderful life. Begin acting like you have achieved this goal. You’ll immediately notice a difference in your behaviour, you will notice a change in your body language. Others will notice too. We become what we think.

If you are not sure where to begin get in touch with me today and we can have a chat about how I can help you.

Maggie Currie

Coach, Mentor, Consultant, Speaker, Author, Survivor
Founder of MAGGIE CURRIE COACHING

Website: http://www.maggiecurrie.co.uk

Facebook: https://goo.gl/ZByKGW
Email: hello@maggiecurrie.co.uk

September 13, 2015 by Maggie Currie

Removing stress with coaching

Having too much stress in your life, will make you anxious, irritable and unproductive. It will affect your relationship with yourself, your performance at work, your long term physical and emotional health and your quality of your life.

Coaching will enable you to overcome stress quickly and easily, leaving you physically more relaxed, mentally calmer, altogether more confident and most importantly, free of stress. Ultimately you will start living the life you desire.

Why is it that all we seem to hear about these days is stress? Why does it seem to pervade everything we do? Well the simple answer is that as a result of ever-increasing expectations and competition more and more people are spending increasing amounts of time utilising their body’s natural stress response.

This instinctive response releases stress hormones directly into the bloodstream. These hormones cause instant mental, emotional and physiological changes – extra awareness, endurance and strength. So if we were in a dangerous situation, this would help us to survive.

Because stress hormones get us fired-up, rather like sprinters crouched and waiting for the starting-gun, and because most stressed people don’t get the release of the race itself, the stress hormones just keep on working.

As a result, we permanently have to endure these feelings of immediate danger and physiological, mental and emotional readiness, never able to relax and never able to feel at ease. Does this sound familiar?

Stress has a dramatic impact on the quality of our lives. It can cause a wide range of emotional problems including issues with anger, anxiety, addiction, panic and obsessive thoughts. It can also affect our physiology such that we suffer from insomnia and the inability of our immune system to work effectively.

Perhaps your stress is caused by going through or the aftermath of divorce or a life trauma. Stress can also be caused by health worries – real or perceived, by financial worries, through a whole raft of worries, through being alone or never being alone.

Do you feel overwhelmed by having too many things to do? Have you noticed that you wake up early or in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep because your mind is racing? Have you been feeling more irritable about minor things at work or at home? If so, it sounds like there’s too much stress in your life.

You are not alone. But why not give it up? Why not reclaim your life and start living the life you deserve to enable you to overcome your stress rapidly, leaving you physically more relaxed, mentally calmer and much more confident.

One of the tools you will learn to adopt through coaching is to stop getting caught in the avalanche of information – much of it negative – that assaults you throughout the day and adds to your worries and therefore the stress levels. Go on a news fast for a day, or a week. Moderate your TV and Internet time.

Coaching tackles life stresses in a more courageous way than many stress management techniques, because it invites you to take an honest look at the fundamental cause of your stress – namely – your life.

Unlock your future by building the new foundations of your life now. Get in touch today.

Maggie Currie

Thought Leader, Coach, Speaker, Author, Survivor
Founder of MAGGIE CURRIE COACHING

Website: http://www.maggiecurrie.co.uk

Facebook: https://goo.gl/ZByKGW
Email: hello@maggiecurrie.co.uk

June 18, 2015 by Maggie Currie

Sometimes I have feelings of inadequacy

Sometimes I have feelings of inadequacy and of not being good enough. I am not sure where they come from but I sometimes wake up feeling that way.

I remember one such occasion, I went to a breakfast business networking meeting, one I went to every Thursday morning at 7am, which meant getting up at 5am to be showered and dressed ready for business by 6.15am at the latest. Then a 10 mile drive.

Usually these meetings were full of energy and fun and a pleasure to be at, but on this day it was a little different. One of our members had split with her significant other and moved off the Island and is now living with her parents on the mainland. This person will be sadly missed as she is vibrant, honest, straight talking and fun. So there was an air of sadness that she had suddenly gone.

There were also some people there who were revelling in this news and making stupid comments, which I tried to ignore, but they were so unnecessary and I thought it was shameful. I said nothing as I didn’t want to get into a stupid argument.

When the meeting finished I took some items to the DHL drop point to send around the world, as I do several times a week with my secretarial business. This should have taken about twenty minutes but ended up taking nearly an hour because the computer system wouldn’t let them put in the address and postcode I had for one item going to China, and a call to the helpdesk was needed and this took forever. The lady who served me is also one of those people I try to avoid as she drains all the energy from me and is very critical of every one and every thing.

So instead of getting back to my office by 9am to get stuck into my work, I didn’t get back until nearly 10.30 and then I was all behind and annoyed that things didn’t work out.

I sat and thought about what it was that was making me feel inadequate. Not the fact that I was late getting back to the office. Not the fact that we had lost a great member of our networking group. So what was it? And then it came to me.

The night before I had been on a fabulous phone call with two coaching colleagues. The creativity and ideas were flowing from them, and what brilliant ideas they were. I am in awe of their power to think these things through so easily and clearly.

So, I believe that I was feeling inadequate because I had absolutely nothing to add to these two brilliant coaches’ thoughts and ideas. They had done their homework fantastically and presented their ideas and innovations in clear and concise ways, and they were great ideas and I know they will work.

I feel that my strengths lie elsewhere, but at that particular moment I wasn’t sure where.

I hate feeling this way and it makes me really upset to think this way. I know that I am a brilliant coach and that I do make a huge difference to people’s lives and that I will continue to do so.

Having written all this I felt much better and know that I have a lot to offer but not necessarily in the same way as other people. I also know that I should not compare myself to other people, that is definitely a confidence killer.

So, to re-boot my confidence I have written a list of my creativity and innovativity (is that a word?) and here is the list I have come up with:

My creativity

Superb coach
Brilliant cook
Expert typist
Can set out a document by eye, and it will look great on the page.
Brilliant writer and author
Fabulously intuitive
Do my accounts satisfactorily
Create a good workspace
Create opportunities for clients
Create opportunities to get clients
Great supporter
Impactful
Great teacher
Create achievable goals for my clients and for myself

My Innovativity

Build relationships online and in person
Think up new ways for my clients to succeed
Find new ways for me to succeed
Lead by example
Positive and encouraging to all
Hear beyond the words

If this hits home to you then please feel free to contact me. You are not alone. I would love to talk with you and help you to learn how to be more confident in yourself. As we all know, life is a school and we are constantly learning. I really do look forward to hearing from you with your lists of creativity and innovativity. Get in touch today to find out how my inspirational coaching can transform first you – and then your life

Maggie Currie

Thought Leader, Coach, Speaker, Author, Survivor

Contributor to BBC Radio, Vectis Radio, Susan Rich Radio

Published author and regularly write articles for national and international magazines.

Find out more about me and my ‘Why’ on my website

May 18, 2015 by Maggie Currie

Do you have relationship anxiety?

Relationship anxiety is very destructive, as you know. If you don’t learn how to get rid of anxiety in your relationship, it leads into a very devastating downward spiral:

One of the first things you will notice is that you become suspicious – you begin worrying about your partner not loving you, or not caring as much as you do. Thoughts of them being unfaithful. Many more self-destructive thoughts and emotions. And of course, all of these will fuel your relationship anxiety.

In order to learn how to get rid of anxiety in your relationship, think about what you can do:

Ask your partner for reassurance. When you find yourself becoming suspicious in your relationship, try to remember that it is probably being fueled by your anxiety. You may be able to get some relief from your relationship anxiety by asking your partner for occasional reassurance. They will be happy to give this if they are patient and understanding of your anxiety.

This kind of support may well be very helpful to you. Ask a trusted friend who is prepared to give you an honest answer if there might be some real reason for you to feel this way. But even when you get that real information, it may not help alleviate your relationship anxiety. You will have to work on that yourself. Perhaps your worry is that you feel that you are too “needy” in your relationship.

For instance, do you need constant reassurance and want your partner to regularly prove that things are really okay? This will inevitably put pressure on you and your partner and will add to the relationship anxiety.

A grateful attitude helps in times of extreme stress

I got married when I was 19 years old and discovered after about six months that I had made a terrible mistake. I was under a lot of pressure from my parents to stay in the marriage as it was not ‘the done thing’ to separate or divorce. In their opinion, I was far too young to know what I was doing. I believed them as I knew nothing different and so I tried to make the marriage work.

Inevitably the pressure of trying to make it work instead of figuring out how to get rid of anxiety in my relationship made me very unhappy and anxious indeed. I stuck at it until I couldn’t take it any longer and I made the decision to leave, take the children, and strike out on my own. That was the right decision for me, and the anxiety was lifted almost as if a huge weight had been taken off my shoulders.

If any of this is resonating with you, then you will need to find ways to cope with your anxiety and learn to rely more on yourself for feeling better – taking the pressure off your partner. This will allow you to become more self-sufficient, even in your anxiety. Give yourself permission to reassure yourself instead of turning to your partner for comfort each time you are anxious. Find ways to learn to think more positively. Try being grateful for what you have.

When you are anxious you can create all kinds of ideas in your imagination that appear so intolerable that you feel compelled to take impulsive and totally misguided actions. You will find yourself:

Jumping to conclusions
Making decisions that are destined to fail
Behaving in a totally childish manner, sulking and demanding attention.

Look for solutions that will relieve your relationship anxiety and won’t result in increasing your problems further.

When you are anxious your partner will be anxious too. It becomes a vicious circle and the anxiety is fed constantly.

Learning to trust your intuition is an important part of reducing your anxiety. So, slow down, think through anything you are considering doing and follow your intuition. Make the effort to stop listening to that nagging voice that is telling you something is wrong. It is very likely when you slow down and think rationally that you will find a much better solution for you and your relationship. In this way, you can successfully get rid of anxiety in your relationship.

Maggie Currie

Thought Leader, Speaker, Author, Survivor

Contributor to BBC Radio, Vectis Radio, Susan Rich Radio

Published author and regularly write articles for national and international magazines.

Find out more about me and my ‘Why’ on my website

March 15, 2015 by Maggie Currie

Set goals that stretch you, but that you can achieve

With the year a quarter of the way through already and the distant memory of those abandoned New Year resolutions, you may well be demoralised into thinking that goals cannot be achieved easily.

However, if you commit to a proper process you can, and indeed will, achieve your goals.

I would like to tell you how I managed to identify my goals for setting up my own businesses and how I achieved them.

When I was leaving the relative security of paid employment for the peculiarities of self-employment, I needed to decide what I was going to do, as, like a lot of people, I had a chequered career history. I chose to work in a field that I most enjoyed, people development. I then had to research the market to see where there was a gap, and if there was a gap, if I had the capability to fill it.

I did a lot of research, most of which cost me no money but a lot of my time. I asked friends, family and colleagues. I looked in the press and on the Internet, and I spoke with professionals, people already in business and business associations. All the research told me was that there was room for a Coach who wanted to help people to survive following life traumas, and to really start living their lives.

I identified my Unique Selling Point – ME! No other company had me within their employ. So I used this to my advantage and set about contacting everyone I knew and told them what I was doing and asked them to consider me for work.

Help comes to those who help themselves. The old adage “All good things come to those who wait” is true, but it’s also true that more help comes to those who help themselves. I hated the wait for the telephone to ring, so I acted as if my business was already running and built a database, set up templates, made business cards, researched the possibilities of employing staff, hiring premises and even working abroad. Nothing was out of reach.

This enabled me to feel and act as if I was already in business, so when I networked – and believe me, I networked – I sounded professional. In time the telephone did ring and one thing led to another. I have been in business for ten years now and have enjoyed every minute. I have learned a lot too. All my hard work has paid off and I am very successful.

Now I want to inspire and motivate you to achieve your goals.

But what are your goals? Do you know? The very first thing you need to do is take some time to seriously consider what goals you want to achieve. Really think, and decide what your goals are. Something else to consider is what are you most dissatisfied with in your life. What can you do about it?

Look at your personal life, your personal growth, your finances. Is there anything you would like to change? What can you do to make those changes?

Once you have set goals for your personal life, think about your career. What do you like about it? What don’t you like about it? Are your finances healthy? What about your professional development? What can you do to change the things you don’t like and implement the things you do like?

Commit to 1-3 goals to get you started, you can add more as each you achieve each goal. Aim to have no more than seven goals at any one time, whilst you work on the top three as a priority. Sometimes it is better to set yourself smaller goals, then you will be motivated to set bigger ones as you achieve them.

Some people prefer to set one or two large goals, and put all their energy and focus into those. The number of goals you set is more to do with your personality than with your likelihood of success. Whichever you choose is fine, each is equally successful, if you follow this process. Once you have your goals, look at them in conjunction with each other to ensure they are not pulling you in different directions.

Once you have decided on your goals, refine them. All goals must be written down and be personal, in the present tense and positive. If your goals are not written down, they are merely dreams.

All your goals must start with “I”. The idea of present tense is important as it convinces your subconscious to think you are already achieving it. The subconscious part of your brain does not judge the information it is presented with, it cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality. So if your goal is, for instance, to build a business, speak to yourself as if it is already underway and your subconscious will think you are currently doing so. This adds to your success.

So your goal may be ‘I am building my business and every day I am more successful’. Or it may be ‘I am moving up my career ladder at the right pace for me’.

Always write your goals down as it cements them into your psyche. Research has proven that goals that are written down have a significantly higher rate of success.

Goals must always be positive. Goals must be about what you want to achieve, to have or do. Focus on what the goal will give you. What benefits to you are there to achieving your goal? Do not think of what you are giving up or losing, as this is the wrong direction to focus in – look forward not back.

Irrespective of the goal, there are only four benefits:

Well being
Status
Money
Time

Once you know this, you will be able to keep that in focus and the idea of what you are aiming to achieve has a reason behind it, a benefit.

One of the main causes of goals not working is focusing on what you are missing out on and not on what you are gaining. What will you gain from achieving your goals?

Take action and really begin to change your life. If you need help, email me at hello@maggiecurrie.co.uk and we can arrange a FREE chat.

Maggie Currie

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March 2, 2015 by Maggie Currie

Chill

Stress as we all know is a killer. And yet still the number of people suffering from it continues to increase. In the UK it is estimated that work-related stress is responsible for six million days of sick leave a year.

When you own your own business, being sick from work is simply not an option. Ask a business owner when they last took a day off sick and chances are it was last century. Maybe we’re all delusional, believing that the business would come crashing to its knees if we weren’t there to run it. More likely that we know the business can function very well without us, but there simply aren’t the resources in place to pick up the work in your absence. Whatever the reason, small business owners don’t read the signs their bodies send them when they are working too hard. That stiff neck, backache, that heart burn – you just work through it.

Whilst it is normal to have some stress when running your own business, excessive stress can seriously disrupt your productivity and have a huge impact on your physical and emotional health. How you deal with this stress can mean the difference between your success or failure.

If you go to your local A & E department you will find doctors and nurses working in very stressful conditions as a matter of course. They get on with their jobs in a quick but measured fashion and there is never any panic amongst the staff. This includes everyone, the porters, the doctors, the nurses. They all have a job to do and they just get on with it – systematically. No dramas, no ‘not quite knowing what was the most important or urgent task of the day’.

There really is little to get stressed about in business. What goes on in hospitals every day all over the country is quite extraordinary. Our doctors and nurses and all their support teams work in severely stressful situations, they work incredibly long hours and are in the business of saving lives. It doesn’t get much bigger than that does it? And yet they seem to do it quite reservedly – we don’t hear much about them on a day-to-day basis do we?

Is it really worth getting so worked up about business? Why not start a triage system in your business – there are just some things that can sit being monitored for while, whilst you get on with the important stuff.

Managing stress doesn’t have to be about making huge changes or rethinking career paths. I believe it is about focusing on the one thing that’s always within your control: YOU.

You can’t control everything related to your business; that would be unrealistic. But that doesn’t mean to say that you are totally powerless—even when you’re stuck in a difficult situation.

I’m a coach specialising in helping people reduce or eliminate stress in their work. I will help you get out from hiding behind your desk. I have set up and run two successful businesses over the past 10 years and I managed stress levels successfully so that it didn’t affect me very much.

And you can do it too…… Take responsibility for your working life. I will help you to focus on what is important, what can be monitored, what can be outsourced, what can be ditched, so that you can work smarter and not harder.

Get in touch today to find out more about my 8 week coaching programme to help you reduce or even eliminate stress from your work.