'Frightened' is my middle name

I'm a great worrier. Not as great as my mum (or even my brother), but pretty good nevertheless.

One of my worries is slipping when I'm on a walk. You may justifiably think 'It's because you're getting older', but actually it was always like this. I vividly remember when I was about 16 and staying with a few girlfriends in a house in Devon. It was beautiful and we spent every day out walking along the cliffs, but even then I was always the slowest - worried that I was going to slip.

If you're slow and careful, I told myself, you won't lose your balance and, of course, I never did. Everyone else would return home from the walk wet, muddy and cold and I would always look as if I'd just gone down the Kings Road for a bit of window shopping.

Of course, I wasn't having as much fun as them because I was just so nervous and uptight. I was fearful of falling.

So, yesterday, out on a walk in Dorset, when my friend suggested we went off the beaten track and down a really steep slope into nowhere I knew or had ever been before, my first reaction was 'No'. My knees started wobbling at the thought of the hill and I felt really nervous of the idea that we might get lost.

This week's workshop, From Fright to Delight, is all about fear so I decided to think delightedly. I flipped my 'No' into a (somewhat tentative) 'Yes, let's have an adventure'.

And I was amply rewarded as in the distance we saw one of the local stunning white deer with two baby brown fawn.

From now on, 'brave' is going to be my middle name.

Come along to this week's club and get rid of your fears forever.

See you there,
Nina
PS Do book in for our highly successful day workshop on WORK. If you've got any doubt in your mind that your career isn't what you want it to be, this workshop is for you - and do tell your friends. It's a tough world out there right now.

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I'm definitely not deep enough

This week's Life Club was all about the kind of questions we ask. I wish I could say that we debated whether god exists and the meaning of religion in 21st century society, but we didn't.

Instead we thought about the difference between open and closed questions.

The first questions we came up with were those 'How are you?' and 'What's up?' questions that we ask all the time without often meaning anything and usually expecting a grunt for an answer. Then a clubber came up with the question: 'What could you do to get better?'.

Now, 'What could you do to get better?' is a pretty good example of an open question. It immediately has me thinking of wonderfully self-improving things, like 'I could go to sleep earlier'... 'I could floss more often'... 'I could go for an hour walk every morning...' and on and on. It feels forward moving and exciting and challenging.

But, as another clubber pointed out, it feels negative. It implies criticism. It implies that you need to get better.

Isn't it interesting how we all look at questions differently?

So, after all that, let's get a bit more intellectual with our questions.

Does god exist? And, if he does, as my son once asked me, why did he create stinging nettles?

Keep me posted with your thoughts.
See you next week at Life Clubs.
All best wishes,
Nina
Founder Life Clubs and author The Life Book (Prentice Hall Life)

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Never again....

I want to make it clear right away that this week's Never Again workshop is not about being eaten by bears - though it could be. It's about all the things you never want to do again. It's deciding what you want backwards.

This is a scenario that quite often happens to me...

It's late at night and I'm driving along the motorway feeling peckish. So I stop at a motorway service station to buy something and I don't really know what it is I want. I look along the crisps, then the chocolates and then the nuts and slowly eliminate what it is I don't want. That leaves fewer and fewer things to decide between until I've worked out just what it is that I want.

Of course, sometimes I walk in, head straight for the Cadbury's flake and just know... but more often than not, I don't.

That happens in life too. I don't really know what I want to do this weekend, but by eliminating some of the possibles (a long walk, a trip to the beach, hanging out with friends), I'm left with what I really fancy - a lazy sun bath in the garden and time alone to write.

Never Again is a great way of backwards thinking. Come along next week and find out more.

Have you ever been approached by a bear??? I hope not. We're a lot friendlier at Life Clubs.

Nina
Founder Life Clubs

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I said 'No' to being a mum

Today I decided I had to get in practise for a Life Clubs 'Saying 'No'' week. I said 'No' to being a mum and 'Yes' to being a daughter, left our son to go rowing with his father, and did one of my favourite things which is to walk across five parks from my home to my mother's and spend some time with her.

The walk in itself was wonderful. A lovely sunny day, I said 'No' to listening to bird calls and 'Yes' to listening to my daughter's i-pod which made me walk faster and introduced me to lots of new songs. I then said 'No' to an ice cream and 'Yes' to a slice of delicious beef bought from a delicatessen I walked past and finally I said 'No' to rushing home and 'Yes' to staying a little longer with my 93 year-old mother.

I also practised saying 'No' to all those mischievous voices going round in my head telling me that I was a bad mum, a bad wife and a selfish human being in general. Just having had a day of doing what I wanted to, made me such a happy bunny I even said 'No' to being a nagging mum and 'Yes' to my daughter when she asked if she could stay with friends tonight. And you can ask her how often that happens.

See you at Life Clubs this week,
Nina
Founder Life Clubs

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