Welcome to Personal Effects for October……this month I am delighted to announce the certification of my new NLP Coaching Diploma and the reflections of one of the first delegates, as well some inspirational thoughts from Lesley McDonald on sticking with your goals…..

New Coaching Qualification now available: NLP Coaching Diploma – Certified By ANLP !

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I am delighted to announce that my 4 day NLP Coaching Diploma is now certified and will be offered as both an open course in 2016 as well as the option of running it in-house for clients.

The qualification gives delegates a first level internationally recognised NLP qualification, applied to a Coaching context.

The first 3 successful candidates are shown below receiving their certificates and Jim Maguire has also written a piece ……………his own inimitable take on his course experience……….do read on…………..

forence-alison
With Andrea Wilson HR Manager

florence-andrew
With Andrew Reay Human Resources Adviser

From Guinea Pig to Pioneer….

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Jim Maguire
Community and Leisure Manager South Lakeland District Council,
NLP Business Practitioner and now NLP Coaching Diploma

4 days and 2 stones lighter our three intrepid heroes set off on a quest…… a quest that would take them through raging torrents, over burning heather and to a brave new world of peace and tranquillity.

They commence the journey as Guinea Pigs and end as Pioneers, hailed by all for enduring the rigours of yet another excellent course with Sansei Madden, the great and all-knowing leader, mentor and coach.

As our intrepid heroes (or Guinea Pigs) arrived at the pre-arranged rendezvous, they are met by a scene of wild animals roaming the land and are soon lulled into a false sense of security with the offer of tea and bacon buns. The weather is sunny, birds are singing in the trees and our clan makes good progress as they discover frames and well-formed outcomes. As they travel they encounter strange new worlds and “thinking environments”; they have a flutter at the TOTE.

Lunch is provided by Sansei and cooked by her own fair hand. After a snooze under a bush at the bottom of the garden (lunch had been rather too filling for some), our team is assembled and on it canters. The day ends with feedback (more foodie themes!) and the tastes and smells of the day are recounted and appreciated. Our band disembarks and travels home, vowing to return again to this mystical land.

Day 2 commences once again with the temptations of the kitchen. French cuisine awaits….. with croissants, jam and proper coffee. As they gain speed and confidence the clan moves more carefully and starts to “walk the logical levels” to a land of wonderment and adventure where behaviours are altered, skills are considered and empowered with new values and identities, their mission for lunch continues. Once again lunch is served with wild animals roaming the lands where summer fruits are picked and served with locally-sourced coconut into a pudding (the best summer fruits pudding this side of anywhere you may care to mention I might add). The incisive question on all our explorer’s lips was “shall I have seconds?”

On the third day of our brave quest it begins much the same as the others with hearty breakfasts and merriment around the kitchen table (we could easily get used to this). Their guide soon has the crew exploring new dark corners as we whisk our way towards “Meta Model” land where their patterns and language are soon exposed for all the world to see. They had all pre-supposed that their journey was nearing an end (after another tiny dinner) and yet no they still had further to go.
The journey was now nearing an end.

The final day began in the office. It was just another Friday at work. Our travellers had now been back in the real world for a couple of weeks and much had changed. “Why” you ask? Even “why” had actually changed… and is now just a three letter word that is seldom if ever heard from our clan’s lips these days. Their guide couldn’t let the opportunity pass without once again taking pity on our poor band of heroes and brought yet more gifts in the form of clean questions and cake (lemon drizzle yum).

The intrepid band of colleagues and friends had reached journey’s end. Hailed no longer as Guinea Pigs and now acclaimed by all the world as Pioneers. The first ever NLP Coaching Diploma holders with Florence Madden Associates.

Footnote: Florence Madden would like to point out that the catering so described is not a normal part of the syllabus …………………and to offer deep gratitude to Jim, Andrea and Andrew who were the inspiration behind the development of this new course !!

Are we there yet?

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Lesley McDonald NLP Master Trainer & Coach at Lesley McDonald Associates

I remember once boarding a train for London; I was travelling from Edinburgh. The journey takes about 4 ½ hours, and as I settled into my seat and the train slid from the station, I heard a little girl ask her mother ‘Are we there yet?!’

I admit it! I inwardly sighed just a bit, knowing only too well it was unlikely to be the last time I’d hear this question over the coming hours!

And yet, even as an adult, it is often an unvoiced question that accompanies me, when I’m embarking upon or progressing on a project… or on bad days ‘Am I ever going to get there?!’

The difficulty with these types of question has never been so clear to me, as when I was recently embarked on a 90-day challenge. The challenge was to record a video, everyday for 90 days and post the result online.

My reason for taking the challenge was to get comfortable in front of the camera, so I could be relaxed recording webinars in the future, if I wished.

I started well and up until around day 50 I post every day, though from as early as about day 5 I began to lose track of how many videos I had actually recorded! Each one blurred into the next and then every-so-often I would do a count and keep going.

Somewhere between day 50 and 60 I fell off the wagon!! I missed a day but immediately videoed again the following day. Somewhere between day 60 and 70 I missed a few more, and again picked things up and continued.

By this time I had only the vaguest idea of how many videos I had to go. At one point, the rate of filming seemed to be slowing exponentially, which would mean day 90 was now, theoretically at least, stretching out towards infinity, or at least it’s how it felt.

With my motivation wavering, I limped along filming sporadically but crucially I did keep going. With what I thought was about half a dozen videos to go I decided I would count again and go for one more push.

This time though I even put off counting them!! When I finally got around it I was hoping I was in the 80s. I was.

In fact the last video, which I had recorded a couple of weeks earlier, had been video 89!!!! Video 89!! I couldn’t quite believe it. Only one video to go!

If only I’d known, I’d have got on with it! Yet a bit disheartened and demotivated, I could have given up! It struck me that for some projects we don’t know how close we might be, some projects require a degree of faith as well as effort !

And I wondered how often we maybe give up, when we are so much closer to achieving our goals, than we realise; when we are within a whisker of the finishing line, of achieving the result.

It was a bit of a moment for me! I wondered what had kept me going, even with all the hiatuses, distractions, and procrastinations!!

In the end, it was a combination of the support I had from people watching the videos, along with the commitment I’d made, right at the beginning, to complete 90 days of videos, and not the proximity to the result.

I had wavered plenty, I’d fallen off the wagon on numerous occasions and I gone plain AWOL more than once, but the support and the commitment to complete continued to bring me back on track.

The last video was easy! It would have been just as easy a couple of weeks earlier, if I’d kept my eye on the prize, rather than the distance I may or may not have had to travel!

And now I’m wondering about your goals, outcomes, and projects. The ones that are important to you, how close you might be, and how you might keep moving, even when the actual distance to the destination isn’t clear.

What is it about the goal that is important to you? What support might you get, what commitment might you make to keep yourself on track when the bright lights of procrastination and distractions attempt to tempt you away?!

How can you keep yourself going without getting disheartened just because you you’re not quite there yet?!

It can sometimes be tempting to give up, especially when it appears as if not much is happening, or as if we’re not getting anywhere fast.

It’s natural when working on a challenging goal or project to want to give up at times, to walk away! And yet I wonder how often we maybe give up too soon, so close to success, without ever even knowing it!

Lesley’s website is: www.lesleymcdonald.co.uk