Overcoming Challenges by Sue Courtney

The Coaching Bit

Last week I suggested playing about with what you think you want in order to find out what you really want. However, a great many of my clients know very clearly what they want, they need me to coax out of them how they are going to achieve it.

Some clients come to me with a precise and immediate need, such as delivering a presentation with confidence. This was a new part of their job and was daunting. We developed a way forward and my client went on to deliver that presentation and future presentations with confidence because she had been able to develop a different mindset and so become a different person around this challenge.

The daunting prospect of presenting can be overcome with coaching.

Another client wanted to move to Spain, along with her family. They had all been learning the language and eating the food. The children even had traditional dresses to dress up in. The missing elements were the belief that it was possible for them and a plan to make it happen. I am happy to report that they have all been happily living in Spain for about nine years now. The girls are bilingual and parents are still happily living and working there.

There are other challenges that my clients have successfully overcome and dreams and goals that they have successfully achieved with coaching, from changing job (sometimes they decide to stay put, but that is OK too), creating a band, getting clarity on the way forward in life and setting up a business. I have even enabled a client to successfully and happily move forward into potential redundancy with so much style and flair that she was kept on and moved to another section, so impressed were her managers, with her positive attitude!

The one thing that they all have in common is that they had to decide what they wanted, make a committed decision to make the change needed and develop a plan of action – and then take the action required.

They all wanted to achieve something new and so they all had to move out of their comfort zone and take new actions and embrace new beliefs about themselves and what they were able to achieve. They had to reinvent themselves and become the person who had already achieved their goals.

So what are your goals? What do you need to believe about yourself and who do you need to become in order to achieve them?

Remember that to successfully achieve them you will have to change your mindset, make new choices and do things differently.

Your response to events will have to change in order for your outcomes to be different.

E + R = O

Remember

“If you always do what you’ve always done

You’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

If you need that listening ear I am here. Just email me at sue@successandimagecoach.co.uk  to share any challenges you may have stumbled upon. There is always a way to move forward.

The Styling Bit

Strawberry 


Remember you are a strawberry shape if you have a wide back and broad shoulders, a large bust, flat bottom, slim legs, and you carry weight around your tummy. 


•      Wear deep v-necks or wide scoop necklines to soften shoulders and draw the eye down the body. 


•      Wide slash necklines are also flattering. 


•      Wrap tops and dresses are flattering and enable a good fit. 


•      Draping cowl necklines also draw the eye down. 


•      Opt for tailored shirts but ensure buttons don’t bulge over cleavage. 


•      Choose tailored jackets or coats without belts for the most flattering shape. 


•      A trick to remember when buying dresses – buy dresses that fit your larger top half and have the lower, skirt section professionally altered to fit. 


•      A professionally fitted bra is essential to accentuate your waist and separate your bust. The bra will also improve the way clothes fit and hang on your body. 


•      Boot-cut or wide, straight jeans and trousers will balance proportions. 


•      Choose elegant high heels to make the most of shapely ankles.

Once you know your body shape it is absolutely vital to get rid of all the clothes that don’t enhance or flatter your particular shape. Don’t be tempted to put them in the back of the wardrobe – get rid of them. But please don’t throw them in the bin: donate them to a charity shop, so that someone else can have the opportunity to enjoy them. In this way, you clear space for flattering clothes that you know look good, and that you feel wonderful wearing. 


Top Tip 


Dress to flatter your body shape at all times.

(Excerpted from my soon to be published e-book “Success with Style: How to Create a Signature Look That Says You Mean Business”)

Making Success a Habit by Sue Courtney

The Coaching Bit

I hope that you may have tried adopting the 5% principle that I shared with you last week to chunk down a goal and make it manageable to achieve. I am still increasing my weekly walking target by 5% and I am on track to meet my goal by the end of March. At that point it still won’t be a habit though. I will have to continue to walk at this level for 66 days in order for it to have become a habit. This sounds like a lot of hard work – but the positive is that after this it shouldn’t take any willpower to keep it up! (That is a thought I like).

Let me explain.

The brain is not hard-wired, it has what scientists call ‘neuroplasticity’. That means that it is capable of making new connections, developing new ways of thinking and new ways of doing things – meaning that you can change!

It has been stated, by scientists that it takes approximately 40 days for a new action to become routine and approximately 66 days for it to become a fully fledged habit.

The 40 days is based on research done by NASA scientists working with astronauts. They wanted to understand how long it took to rewire the astronaut’s brains.

To do this they gave a group of astronauts convex glasses which flipped the world upside down. The scientists then observed the astronauts to see what happened. Well, after 21 days the first astronaut’s world turned the right way up again. The others followed, taking anything from 21 to 40 days for their world to right itself. Their brains had totally rewired in that time.

Interestingly, if the convex glasses were removed half way through the experiment, even if only for one day, it took another 21 to 40 days to achieve the change. Consistency is clearly vital for routines to be formed.

However, in another experiment by University College, London, it was discovered that it takes approximately 66 days to form a habit. They define a habit as a behavior  that has reached a stage of 'automacity', where it is performed whenever the situation is encountered without thinking, awareness or intention.

However, There was a wide variation in time it took the participants to form the new habit which ranged from 18 days to 254 days, 66 being the average. So why might it take you just over two weeks or about eight months to change a behavior? Simply put – motivation. You need to be serious about making the change and have a really strong ‘why’ to overcome the urge to not bother.

If you are reaching this point, here are some tips to help you keep going for that magical 66 days (more or less).

• ·      Change only one habit at a time. Overhauling your life needs to be done one step at a time.
• ·      Start with small steps – that 5% more that I mentioned last week. Make the goal possible for you to achieve. This builds momentum.
• ·      Make this a habit by repeating on a daily basis until it is automatic – you feel that you need to do it and can’t imagine not doing it. Then make it bigger – walk further, eat a bit less, whatever it is you are doing, take it a few steps on once it has become habitual.
• ·      Identify your cue – what causes you to do the activity? It may be drinking a glass of water before dinner or going for a walk after dinner. Your cue, in this case is the time of day or the meal. If this is consistent the action should be easier to form into a habit.
• ·      Be sure that it is a habit that YOU want to install. If getting fit is your goal then because someone else is running five miles each day, doesn’t mean you should if you hate running. Walk, dance, swim, - find an activity that you will enjoy, it’s YOUR life, do it YOUR way.
• ·      Plan for the days when it just isn’t possible. You may feel ill or have an unavoidable meeting. What will you do then? Maybe just do less, or allow yourself that one session off, knowing that you will be back on track the next day. Dieters are notorious for letting one lapse turn into complete abandonment of the diet. Don’t let that be you –mentally plan your strategy.
• ·      Create accountability by telling others what you are doing. It is much harder to quit if you have to explain why you quit to others. I certainly found that publicly stating my aim to only drink water for the month of January and asking for sponsorship ensured that I stuck to the goal. Failure wasn’t an option once I had done that!

The Styling Bit

Last week I mentioned that I would share some of the characteristics of the five main body shapes.

•        If you are an apple shape, you have a voluptuous chest, round tummy, little or no clearly defined waist, quite a flat bottom, chunky arms and wonderfully slim legs. 


•       If you are a pear shape, you have a small bust, slim arms, slim waist, flat tummy, curvaceous hips and thick legs. 


•       If you are a strawberry shape, you have a wide back and broad shoulders, a large bust, flat bottom, slim legs, and you carry weight around your tummy. 


•        If you are a rhubarb shape, you have a boyish figure with small bust, no clearly defined waist, slim hips, wonderfully long slim legs and a long body. 


•        If you are an hourglass shape, then you are curvaceous, with a full bust, small waist, rounded hips and generous thighs. You may also have heavy legs. 


As you can see, there is no perfect shape. If you are like me, you would probably like to have aspects of each, but acceptance of what you are is key. Once you are clear about what body shape you have, you can dress to flatter your shape, highlighting your assets and drawing attention away from aspects that you are less keen on.

(Excerpted from my soon to be published e-book “Success with Style: How to Create a Signature Look That Says You Mean Business”)

So which shape best describes you?

Over the next few weeks I will share some of the styles that flatter the different shapes.