Do you know why you're here?

As this week's workshop is about success and on 21st May we're holding Work & YOU, our one-day workshop all about work and how to make your work life as successful (fulfilling, enjoyable, lucrative etc) as you want it to be, I wanted to let you read the story of someone who came on this workshop the last time we ran it. It's heart-warming and I hope will inspire you to come along to the workshop too.

"In 2001, by the age of 22 I had got my MBA in India and was working as a management consultant in the Health Sector. I’d also been writing poems and short stories and won some prizes so I enrolled myself on a one-year ‘Writing for Performance and Publication’ course in Leeds - I wanted to see the world. It was wonderful. I met my partner, Robin, in March 2009 and decided to stay in the UK with him.

I didn’t have a job to go to and found it was tough to get work. I ended up going back to India for a short consultancy job which used my skills. When I arrived back in the UK in April 2010, again I found it very difficult to get work. I tried temporary work, but even in shops no-one wanted to give me a job. I think employers were hesitant to give work to an unknown, plus I was over-qualified in some ways and under qualified in others - I knew nothing about retail.

In April I went to a Life Club Work workshop. I was nervous about going, but Robin was keen I should attend. I clearly remember an exercise in which I was asked to think about how a tiger would find a job. Lynne (one of the Hosts) asked me what a tiger does. I replied ‘It hunts’. She then asked me ‘What does it do before it hunts?’ and I replied ‘It goes to the waterhole and finds its prey’. By the end of the day I was thinking about how the tiger conserves energy, collects information and then goes for the kill and knew that’s what I had to do if I wanted to find a job.

The workshop gave me lots of ideas and left me full of enthusiasm. Eight months later I’ve got some consultancy work and am also working in retail. I feel much more confident and the effect of the workshop has lasted a long time – it’s stayed with me.

I’ve even been looking at jobs in PR agencies so I can use my writing skills. I’m not giving up. The tiger is watching out, waiting to pounce."

I feel inspired just reading it. Come and be successful too!
Best wishes,
Nina

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Best Life Ever

It's been a tragic few weeks and it seems decadent to be thinking of what could make our lives even better when so many have been, and are, suffering. But who know what will happen in our lives and so it's important, not decadent, to take the time to make them as good as we want them to be.

You've probably all read Steve Jobs excellent Stanford University speech in which he talks about how he uses death to think about what he wants from his life: 'I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?"'

That's a great way to think about each day, but to my mind life doesn't have to be that passionate every day. It's fine to have 'OK' days as well as 'great' days. What's important is to know what you want to fill those days with.

Someone came to my club last week talking, almost embarrassedly, about having the problem of too much time to fill. Some came up with the contrary 'Lucky you, I've got too much to do', but I think we all know that feeling of the day stretching out ahead and no idea what to fill it with.

This week's workshop is about finding out what makes you unique. What it is you love, what it is you'd do on the last day of your life and what keeps you going on those empty days. We look forward to seeing you.

And, referring to another part of Jobs's speech in which he says: 'I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.'

Have you bought tickets yet for our Work & YOU workshop on 21st May? It's from 10-5 and is taking place all around the country. If you want to feel like Jobs, I'd suggest coming along. Find your nearest venue and book now. Tickets are moving fast...

Best wishes,
Nina

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We are all stars

We'll win tonight is good for starters, but looking through the paper today I came across a couple of headlines I rather fancied adopting myself:

The first was:
Always (the race horse) is on right track to success and the second:
Why Micah Richards should be lauded for finally fulfilling his early England potential.

In my mind I rewrote them easily, substituting my name for the original:
Nina is on right track to success or even:
Why Nina should be lauded for fulfilling her potential (I know... I got rid of a few words on the second one, but they didn't seem necessary).

It may sound 'sad', but I felt good writing those headlines down - and even thinking them. Try it... substitute your name for mine and see how it feels.

Headlines are very powerful and they're the topic of this week's workshop. They're a great way of finding out what you really want your goal to be and they're inspirational.

Just a few moments ago my headline was Nina writes her blog post in record time and look, now I've done it.

Let's try it again...Thousands rush to Life Clubs workshop!!! More Daily Mail than Guardian I know, but just as effective. Come and join us and feel inspired.

See you there,
Nina
PS Don't forget to book for our Work & you workshop on May 21st. It's in conjunction with Psychologies Magazine and will be totally brilliant.

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Work/Life Balance (or is it Life Balance?)

This week at Life Clubs we were contemplating the balance in our lives. A good way of doing this is to see what takes up your time and whether or not it's what you like doing.

At the moment I'm not having much of a life balance. One thing I love doing is seeing my husband and yet we're both working too hard. He hasn't worked this hard for years and it's making me work much harder as I can't see him.

I realised this Life Club that what I want to have is a theme for my week which will stop me working - even if I can't see him. It's totally obvious that my theme for the week will be Christmas and so this week my balance is going to be Christmas (rather than work) focused.

I'm buying presents, sending cards, planning meals. Now, how efficient is that? And, it's so much fun that I don't miss my husband quite as much!!!

Five ways to achieve your ideal life balance

1. Having goals (once you know what you want you will automatically prioritise your time accordingly)
2. Focusing will stop you getting distracted and procrastinating (no need to multi-task, just focus)
3. Book in time for everything you want to do – put it in your diary
(from an evening with your partner to time for you to be spontaneous)
4. Getting support (so you don’t have to do everything but can delegate – even if it’s to the children)
5. Make use of time saving devices (keeping favourite recipes together and directions of other’s homes)

Check what's taking up your time. If it's something that really you could do without, see if you can't do less of it.

Think of your life as made up of these stunning colours. Which would you like more of in your life? And how will that be possible?

All best wishes,
Nina

Two bits of exciting news:
1. Do your Christmas present shopping on our website - we have partnered with magazines (Psychologies, Elle and Red) and my favourite, totally natural soaps - fantastic presents at knock-down prices
2. Life Clubs has it's first cover story - January Easy Living magazine!!! It's called Life's Simplest Joys: we defy you not to smile when reading this. Yeah!

and what takes up our time. In my case it's definitely my computer

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The three types of problems

Dear All,

I don't know about you, but there are some things I find incredibly difficult to write about.

One of them is procrastination. Just thinking about procrastination makes me procrastinate. Writing the Life Clubs workshop on procrastination took ages and ages and preparing to run it is something I always leave to the last minute.

Another subject I find difficult to write about is problems and knowing that I had to write about them for this post has just added to my problems.

This week's workshop was all about stress and the problems we have.

In the workshop we divided up our problems into three groups:

1. Those problems which will eventually go away anyway so there's no point in worrying about them
2. Those problems which you can't do anything about - other people's
3. Those problems which you can solve

Once you've found that you can solve your problem, there's then nothing but (you guessed) procrastination stopping you.

Please forgive me, that's a gross simplification of problems, but you get the idea. We often worry about things there is no need to worry about.

I've been spending the last few days thinking about some of my domestic problems and decided that even though they're so bourgeois I'm going to tell you about them. I worry about what I'm going to cook for supper this week when friends come round. I worry about what I'm going to buy everyone for Christmas (and when). I worry about how I'm going to stay calm when all our visitors arrive over Christmas... and on and on.

I don't know if any of you have noticed, but as I was writing them down my Lightbulb Moment was that all my problems will all have gone away by January 1st (see 1. above), so I'm going to stop worrying about them now.

Phew. I can breathe again...

What do you worry about..?

This week's workshop (week of 6th December) is a wonderful workshop about the choices we have in our lives. If you're working too hard, not working hard enough, not sure if your life is in balance, come along. I look forward to seeing you.

And, if you haven't already, do check out our new website, mybestthingtoday. It's getting 800 hits a day which is absolutely amazing.

Hope you have a great week,
Nina
Founder Life Clubs
Author The Big Book of Me, The Life Book and How To Get What You Want

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Books or mind or both?

To me this messy bookshelf looks divine. Inviting, intelligent, a little chaotic and definitely worth looking in as you might find a treasure. And yet, this week, we were hosting a workshop on decluttering, so it's not really appropriate for me to eulogise about mess.

Our office, before this week, looked a little like those shelves and part of me loved it. It feels like there's always something to discover. It made us look a little human and homely rather than stiff and anal. After all (and this is how I try and persuade myself) we're a soft, fuzzy business, we should have a soft, fuzzy workplace.

But this week we set to work. Each folder was removed from the shelves and brought up to date. Each piece of paper was found a home or binned and we even filed away all our computer documents on dropbox (our new favourite toy).

Gosh. Does it feel good. We've had a fantastic week with interesting meeting after interesting meeting. I'm now convinced I've opened a space in which more creativity can happen rather than less. We're all skipping here.

How's your decluttering going??? Is it your books you're getting rid of or the mess in your mind?

Good luck - just don't throw any my way.
Nina
PS If you're a top tips kind of person, have a look at mine on work/life balance here
PPS If you're a facebook kind of person, do 'like' our page
PPPS Next week's workshop is on creativity. For a look at this month's workshops, click here.

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