Issue 4 - January 08

Inside This Issue

New Beginnings: Getting Organised
Five Top Tips for Time & Energy Management
An Organised Mind
Run your own Personal Development Business
What You Are Saying About Life Coaching

How to feel great in 2008

Hi, and welcome to the fourth edition of STIMULUS News!

Well, it’s that time of year again: a time for fresh starts, goals and New Year’s resolutions. The theme for this issue is getting organised for 2008.
It’s great to set goals and make resolutions, they set us in the right frame of mind for the year. However, more often than not our resolutions (for example to go to the gym three times a week) do not last, sometimes because there is little follow through.
This issue will be challenging you to get organised so that you stand a chance of helping your year turn out the way you want it to.

Take great care of yourself!
Carmen G

As always we’d love to hear your comments and receive articles for publication. The deadline for next edition is the end of March.

Using Your Time

How are you using your time – and what are your plans? Do not forget, there are less than 9,000 hours in a year – more than 500 of them have already passed. Did you use them wisely? What will you do with the other 8,000+?

What are your plans for the year? What are the three things you want to achieve by the end of the year? How are you going to organise your life in order to get those things? How will you make 2008 different? How will you grow as a person? What will you sacrifice to achieve your dreams? What will you take forward from this year into the rest of your life?

All these questions are designed to open up your mind and get you thinking beyond the day to day humdrum of life. So decide what’s important to you, use this issue to start making your plans and get organised for 2008!

New Beginnings - Getting Organised

It is a good idea to use the beginning of the year to decide how you are going to organise yourself to achieve your goals. In her book Organized for Success, Nanci McGraw suggests a formula for setting your priorities and getting into action. She suggests that you start with your values, and use these as a basis for setting your priorities: eg the priority of family.

The next step is to set a general priority: eg enjoy quality time. The next is to set a specific priority, such as having sit down dinners. The last is to use the values, general priority and specific priority to create an action that will be added to your to do list: such as buy groceries.

Try this to get you not just thinking but also taking action.

‘Organized for Success’
by Nanci McGraw

Five Top Tips for

Time & Energy Management
1. Work off a plan. This allows you to ‘budget’ your time, work in breaks and keep an overview
2. Start early. This helps keep stress and energy levels, in check, keeps you in control, and helps you think more creatively about your time & energy
3. Allow 2-3 times more time than you need to carry out tasks. Be realistic about what you can do. Things tend to take 2-3 times longer than we think
4. Break large tasks down. This prevents overwhelm in the case of very large tasks and helps you stay in control
5. Start it now! Where possible start tasks immediately. This helps break the back of your task and give you a feel for the complexity of the task

An Organised Mind

One of the issues we often face in today’s ‘multi-tasking’ society is everything merging into one in our minds. This can lead to overwhelm.
To help prevent this happening to you try to incorporate deep breathing into your day. (When you breathe deeply your abdomen should move in and out).

Do this before you become stressed - it will slow you down mentally and physically and allow you to think more clearly. This in turn helps you to mentally ‘compartment-alise’ what you do (literally put everything you do into separate ‘boxes’ in your mind). This measured approach helps give you more control over your mind, your tasks and your life.

Would you like to run your own personal development business?

check out:
www.mindsettosuccess.co.uk

then
www.mindsettosuccess.com

Watch the videos, listen to the recordings, check out the sites then call STIMULUS for further details: 0116 289 3993

What You are Saying About Life Coaching…

As we have said in previous issues there are many benefits to Life Coaching. Some of the positive feedback we have had from previous Clients have included the following broad areas:

•The importance of having the space simply to think and work out issues for oneself
•An invaluable feeling of being in a trusting and supportive environment
•Beginning the Life Coaching journey with a feeling of being ‘stuck’ in life, and ending it with a sense of being able to move forward
•Feeling less blocked in life as a result of the coaching
•The importance of just being able to talk things through
•Having a different perspective on life

Because we all have the answers to our dilemmas within us, sometimes all that we require is a gentle nudge in the right direction to help us get back on course.

The Perspective of the Coach
As a Life Coach, it is rewarding to see the change in people by the time they have complete their set of sessions compared to when they arrive.

Individuals can sometimes feel physically weighed down by their issues. However as soon as they begin talking things through – and learning the tools and techniques that can help them develop a fresh perspective - they can begin to see ways through their issues they had not necessarily previously thought of.

The answers have, however, fundamentally come from them with the Coach facilitating that process. This is the essence of Life Coaching: positively encouraging someone to find their own answers.

For further information contact
STIMULUS on 0116 289 3993

New STIMULUS CD-ROM out now

‘Taking Your Life to the Next Level’

50+ tools, hints, tips & techniques covering:

• minimising stress
• boosting self belief & esteem
• personal organisation
• positive thinking

Call STIMULUS on
0116 289 3993
for details

Self Help Publications & Audio CDs

• How to Win Friends & Influence People
 Dale Carnegie

• Be Your Own Life Coach 
Fiona Harrold

• Unleash The Power Within (Audio CD)
 Anthony Robbins
All available on Amazon

Keep Yourself Updated

If you would like to join the STIMULUS email loop to be kept updated on STIMULUS developments and up and coming workshops, as well as to receive regular personal development hints, tips, tools and techniques simply send your email address to:

info@stimulus.uk.com

Publications

STIMULUS Development & Training Companion Handbooks and other publications

Advanced Planning
This manual takes you through a step by step method of how to set a plan and successfully reach your desired outcome

Combating Self-Limiting Beliefs
This manual looks at what self limiting beliefs are, where they stem from, the consequences of long-standing limiting beliefs as well as tools to combat self limiting beliefs

Confidence & Self Esteem Building
This manual focuses on looking at the similarities and differences between these two important areas, and the roles they play in either enriching or limiting our lives

Minimising Stress, Maximising Relaxation
The Minimising Stress… manual explores what stress is, looks at understanding the underlying causes of stress as well as the impact that stress has on the body and our lives

Positive Thinking & Behaviour
This positive thinking and behaviour manual aims to look at what influences how we think and behave, why some of us are positive as people and others negative and how we can use strategies to begin thinking more positively

Practical Goal Setting
Like Advanced Planning, Practical Goal Setting takes you through a step by step method of how to set goals in order to successfully reach your desired outcome. It assists reader to increase their organisational skills, set realistic goals and put them into action

Time & Energy Management
The aim of this manual is to allow participants to understand the nature of time and the tricks it can play on our minds, and to appreciate the importance of energy and how it can be used effectively

Other Publications

Breaking the Barriers
Looks at ‘barriers’ such as fear, lack of organisation, fatigue etc and how these can affect our success

All publications are available from STIMULUS Development & Training 0116 289 3993

January-March 2008 workshops*

Setting Inspirational Goals & Planning for Success
Saturday
February 2nd 10am-4pm

Minimising Stress,
Maximising Relaxation
Saturday
February 16th 1-5pm

Time & Energy Management
Saturday
March 8th 10am-4pm

The Business Mind
Saturday
March 22nd 10am-4pm

Combating Self-Limiting Beliefs
Saturday
March 29th 1-5pm

*Venue for above workshops:
Epic House 3rd Floor, Lower Hill Street, Leicester LE1 3SH

(Contact STIMULUS to book and for dates, times and venues for
Twilight club sessions)

Disclaimer

The articles and publications cited in this newsletter are designed to assist the individual to achieve their potential.

The information contained in them should not be considered a substitute for expert medical intervention should this be deemed necessary.

The ‘Self Help Publications’ mentioned above are for information purposes only and do not imply recommendation or endorsement by STIMULUS Development & Training.