Pivotal Choices Coaching

Small Steps Lead to Pivotal Changes

Many people seem to think that a new year heralds a fresh start.

Not necessarily.

What are you doing now that you’d like to do more of?

It doesn’t take a major change; choosing small, but important steps, lead to pivotal changes.

What is a small step you can take?  Many people would say exercise more. 

If that’s a focus you would like to increase, how much do you exercise now?  How many times a week?  What if you raised that level just one notch for the next month?

Making this pivotal choice starts with your writing it down. 

Small, incremental steps amount to big, pivotal changes.  They’re realistic and easy to maintain.

What’s the small step that you’re willing to take?  And when will you that step? Write it in your calendar.

You can do this! 

Go my website (www.nwcoaching.com) and sign up for my Smart Tips newsletter. You will get the support you need and tips that you can use.  I'll also send you a bonus gift.

Happy New Year and thanks so much for reading my Pivotal Choices Coaching blog in 2007.

If you have a goal that you would like to work toward, contact me.  I look forward to hearing from you in 2008. 

I want 2008 to be a year of productivity and greater life satisfaction for you.

Warmly,

Nancy Whichard
Your Coach for Pivotal Choices and Change
nancy@nancywhichard.com
www.nwcoaching.com

Choosing to View Life through a Lens of Gratitude

I’ve always thought that I knew a lot about gratitude. Gratitude is one of my top five signature strengths.  I routinely send thank you notes for presents, and I feel grateful for what I have and for what I have accomplished in my life.

What else is there to know?

But a few nights ago I listened to a teleconference about gratitude, given by Deb Levy, an educator and a teaching assistant to Tal Ben-Shahar at Harvard.  Deb’s talk started me thinking how gratitude could play an even larger role in my life. 

Since the teleconference I have read more on the emerging research on gratitude and am amazed at the role gratitude can play in changing people’s lives.

What I have read tells me that gratitude is a choice.  And it’s not always easy to choose gratitude.  It demands that we acknowledge the gifts from others. That we view life through a lens of gratitude.

It’s easy to be grateful for the food we eat and the sun that shines, but to view life through gratitude means that being grateful replaces the feeling that we deserve all that life can give us. It replaces the feeling that we have suffered for everything that we’ve achieved. Or that we’re still a victim of some kind.

What choosing gratitude means is that we see ourselves as incomplete and in need of the help others have given us. 

So even though the number of people around my dining room table will be smaller than the number of guests my grandmother would have had at her Thanksgiving table when I was a child, I can choose a to be part of a very large community.

This Thanksgiving Day I will thank my husband and my children for all they have given me.  I am gladly and gratefully dependent upon them.

And I will thank the members of that community that I see in my mind’s eye for all of the gifts I have received—that community includes people from long ago in my life as well as people that I saw Friday at the office.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nancy
www.nwcoaching.com

Three Steps for Making-Do with a Job Even If Change Is on the Horizon

Sometimes we are so eager to move on from our current job to what is coming next that we burn our bridges.

If you haven’t landed the next job beyond a doubt, then you probably want to make sure there’s a paycheck coming in.  You also may need references from your supervisor or employer at some point in the future.

If you have to remain at your current job for the foreseeable future, how can you make this time of uncertainty or transition easy on yourself?  Even better, how can you make this time count for something?

What opportunities are there for learning?

Here are three ways to use this time to your advantage:

1.  How can you increase your social intelligence?  Without engaging in office gossip, what can you learn about how others act wisely in office relationships and how they use social information to get others to cooperate?  What can you learn about leadership by observing how others use their social intelligence?

2.  What can you learn about your character strengths?  How are you using your top strengths and where could you have been using them more on this job?

3.  What would you do if you were the CEO of this organization? What changes would you make?  How would you change the corporate or office culture?

I'd love to hear what you might add to this list.

If you're interested in hearing more about using your strengths, please sign up for my free newsletter at my website:  www.nwcoaching.com.