Sunday 25 September 2011

Thank you SO much


With help from glittergraphics I want to thank you for being such wonderful followers of my blog.

As hinted at last week, we are now moving to the Life Clubs website - a far more appropriate home - and I look forward to welcoming you there.

As I won't be posting on this website any more, I do hope you'll sign up to be one of our followers again, either through an RSS feed or becoming a Google friend. Just click here.

It's been great knowing you all and I hope we'll stay together.

Best wishes and thanks again. Here's to new beginnings!
Nina

Friday 16 September 2011

I do like writing on Joomla...



Yes, it's exciting. I'm about to stop writing on blogspot and, taking the advice of many who know better than I, have bought my blog into our website.

But it's also scary. Joomla is a massive engine that holds our website together. I find it quite complicated and, sometimes, unmanageable. Am I going to cope?

This week's workshop, Training Your Mind, is about the way we talk to ourselves.

I could sit here writing my first ever post, saying 'I can't do it. I loved my old blog - we'd been together for four years. I'm not going to feel creatively inspired. I'm not going to be able to understand how to use this new system.'

Or, I could sit here going 'Gosh, this is an adventure. I love the new layout. It's going to attract way more people to our website. I can learn things easily. I'm a closet geek. Bring on the challenge.'

What do you think I'm going to be saying to myself?

Let's train your mind.

Repeat after me: 'I'm going to Life Clubs this week. I'm going to Life Clubs this week...'

Only joking.
See you there,
Nina
Founder of Life Clubs and tester of all things new

I am moving to my website blog, but, as yet you can subscribe to it. I'll let you know when we're all set up and ready to go. Thanks.

Sunday 11 September 2011

We only use such a tiny part of our brains


This week I happened to pass by an exhibition by Stephen Wiltshire, a severely autistic artist. If you've never seen Stephen's work, do click on this link. The complexity and detail in his work that comes from his memory, rather than from copying a photograph, is amazing.

Similarly, though in a different vein, those who win pub quizzes and Mastermind have brains they've trained to hold enormous amounts of information. And, again, concert pianists have worked their brains to memorise vast and complex pieces of music and, at the same time, to play them.

Our brains can do so much more than most of us use them for. We're often just scratching the surface in terms of what we've asked our brains to do - a bit like only using Word on a computer - and so it makes sense that we should train them a little more.

Visualisation, the subject of this week's workshop, Holding Your Dreams, is all about how to use a little bit more of your brain more effectively.

Drawing is a simple way to think about visualisation - as is cooking. We start a drawing or cooking a meal (as Ruby probably did when she wanted to demonstrate all the new colours in her kindergarten, see image, or as Nigella probably does before she starts cooking) by imagining what we want to cook or draw before we begin. Then we fill in the spaces from here to end product.

Visualisation has been shown to help people cure illnesses, to help lose weight and to help with our careers and life in general. It can be used as a superior form of planning - I visualise what I'm going to say and do each week before my club so I can be certain I know what I want to say and how I want to say it and, most essentially, what I want to bring along to the workshop.

So start visualising now about how you're coming along to Life Clubs this week and going to learn something that will change your life... just how exciting is that?

I'm visualising seeing you!
Best wishes,
Nina

Saturday 3 September 2011

There's never enough time...


To me there's never enough time on holiday. I want holidays to go on and on.

At the start of each holiday it seems as if I've got infinite time ahead (that's a great feeling!), but by the time I've relaxed into holiday mode, the days go quicker and quicker and suddenly it's the end and there hasn't been enough holiday.

But during my working life there's always enough time... for what I want to do.

I'm constantly aware of my Balance Chart (see picture) and know which bits of my life I want to work on at any time. We use a Balance Chart every week at Life Clubs for that reason - so it becomes a part of your life too.

We've customised a Balance Chart that we use at Life Clubs Base Camp, so that we can prioritise each area of work and focus on what we want (or need) to do every day. We delegate to each other, know each other's strengths and weaknesses, tell each other when we need help and then together focus on our next tasks. By working as a team and knowing what's important we're increasing speed and cutting out inessentials.

Why do people say they haven't got enough time? Is it an excuse for not wanting to do something?

If you're finding yourself saying 'I haven't got enough time', just stop and think. What would be the harm in saying 'No'?

Learn how to prioritise, avoid procrastination and say 'No' this week at the nearest Life Clubs to you.

It's a great workshop, we call it Streamlining - we like to think of increasing speed to gain time.

See you there,
Nina