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Actions, goals & purpose

I read a daily coaching tip I liked from Michael Neill yesterday, which I was thinking about on my run this morning.

In his tip, Michael talked about the three key components to living a life of purpose, which are the goals you set, the actions you take and having an awareness of the higher purpose behind everything you do.

An example he then gives , using his to do list, is to look at the goal behind filing his tax receipts.

His goal behind the task is to be completely up-to-date with his tax for the year.

He then looks at the purpose behind being on top of his tax, and that is to be financially independent within the next five years.

I like Michael's approach, and certainly think it can put some oomph behind what seems like a quite mundane task of filing his receipts.

I think I might try it out.

Turning work into play

I waited until it was light and went out with the fabulous Sarah's Runners again this morning.

I make that just over 18 miles I've run in the first six days of December.

Today, I have a Mark Twain quote on my mind.

"The work that is really a man's own work is play and not work at all. Cursed is the man who has found some other man's work and cannot lose it. When we talk about the great workers of the world we really mean the great players of the world."

This fits in with my philosophy of coaching people who hate to work.

We've all heard of those people who appear to have a dream job, because they say that what they do, doesn't feel like work. They would do it even if they didn't earn money doing it.

Isn't that the dream for all of us?

As a coach friend of mine says, with anything you look at, there are usually three ways that people do things, the hard way, the easy way and the middle way.

When it comes to work, the hard way is doing work that you hate.

The easy way is doing work that you love.

The middle way is making sure that even though you're not doing work that you love, you concentrate on loving how you do it.

My goal is to help as many people as possible move up the spectrum from hard to medium, or medium to easy.

Body talk

A friend told me about The Boy with Tape on his Face a couple of weeks ago.

As well as finding the video very funny, I also find it fascinating how powerfully he is able to communicate without the use of words.

They do say that in face-to-face situations our words have far less impact than our tone of voice or body language.

In this video, he has taken away his ability to communicate at all with words or tone of voice. He only has his body language.

And yet, he is able to convey what he wants to his volunteer assistants, and also the humour to his audience, incredibly powerfully purely with his body language and some musical support.

He would probably have the same impact all over the world, without being able to speak one word of the language of his audience.

Supposedly we form first impressions of people we meet within seconds of meeting them, usually before we have even spoken.

What first impression are you creating with your body language?

If anyone can, I can

I completed my longest run in 6 months this morning, most of it in the glorious Knole Park in Sevenoaks.

During my run, I remembered a text I received from an ex client, probably about 6 months ago now.

In his text he was telling me about something absolutely amazing that he had just achieved, and he reminded me of something I had said to him, which he credited with his having succeeded.

I said to him, "If anyone can do it, you can!"

It's funny, isn't it, how it can take someone else's belief in you, to make you start believing it yourself.

I also realised that I've said it to others, and I've absolutely believed it (otherwise it comes out as insincere), but I'm not so good at saying it to myself.

So my new motto for the coming week is

"If anyone can do it, I can!"

Reliving the moment

I had a great day yesterday.

After my early run, I had a thoroughly enjoyable, fun time connecting with friends at my regular monthly business networking group.

Later, I spent an inspiring, engaging and exciting time with David Hemery and a group of local primary school headteachers, connecting with old friends and one or two new acquaintances, and telling them about the Be the Best You Can Be! programme.

I also received 2 tweets with mentions for me, one saying "you ARE an inspiration", and the other referring to me as "The rather marvelous @TonyCoach".

Finally, to top it all, my new iPhone 4 arrived in the post.

But of all the great things that yesterday brought me, the one that had the least impact was the arrival of the iPhone.

It just goes to show that anything to do with connecting with people is always the most powerful of all possible experiences for me.

One of the reasons I'm recording all this in my blog is to have something I can refer back to.

Memories of strong positive experiences, especially those where you can recollect what you saw, what you heard and what you felt, are just fantastic for when you are feeling below par.

Going back and reliving those experience with all your main senses, helps you reconnect to the positive feelings you had before.

Exactly what you need to pick you up and get going again.

Follow your bliss

A very different morning to yesterday.

I did my mile-and-a-bit at 5.30 this morning, with proper December temperatures, a clear sky full of stars, and patches of fog swirling around.

Last night I helped out with the fabulous Sarah's Runners again, so technically, as I went out early this morning, I've run three times in the past 24 hours.

I was thinking, on my run, that not only has running been the source of most of my main ideas that have had a significant impact on my life, it's also been one of the consistent themes, along with music and family, throughout my life.

This has been in the shape of various sports like football, rugby, hockey, squash and sprinting through my school days, to football again and longer distance running in my post school life.

Running has been there throughout all of those.

I don't want to give the impression that I was particularly brilliant at any of those things. I wasn't, but what's important is that I really enjoyed them all.

And whatever enthusiasm I have put into all those endeavours, I have been paid pack many many times over with the fun, enjoyment and additional unexpected benefits that I have gained from them all.

I think that's the key.

Do what you find fun, and you love to do, and opportunities will open up that you never anticipated.

As Joseph Campbell said,

"Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be."

Lessons from an entreprenur

That was my 700th consecutive daily run of at least a mile this morning.

Eleven degrees celsius on the 1st December and running in a tee-shirt did seem rather unusual, but it was good.

Yesterday morning, I attended a motivational talk given by the founder of the fastest growing business breakfast network in the world.

What were his main messages?

Don't believe other people's comments that what you're trying to do won't work, and that you're mad. If you believe in what you're doing, even if everyone tells you you're wrong, keep going.

Don't hesitate when it comes to making a decision. Just make a choice and keep moving. Any decision is better than no decision.

People do business with people that they know, like and trust. Build relationships and stop trying to sell.

Don't try to collect as many contacts as you can. Focus on deepening your network, not widening it.

Do what you enjoy doing and find a way to make a living from it. You only have one life, why waste it?

Some good advice there. It makes sense to me.