It's great to have options!

Wow! What a week it has been.

I have been wrestling with a problem that has been lingering just a bit too long. It started as a 'crack' in my roadway and now it was becoming a wide crevice.

I needed to take a new approach to solving it.

I put down my usual tools and used the LIFE Model from Life Clubs. Before I knew it ...I had moved from the habitual jumping into 'solutions' mode ... to the energizing zone of brainstorming options. The ideas just kept flooding in. It was great to get the creative juices flowing!

What was once seems like a monkey on my back is now a source of energy and excitement.

Come along to Life Clubs and you too can learn the Key Steps to Problem solving!

Eva-Marie

Creating Space

How many times have you gone against your intuition, only to end up being right? What's getting in the way of your instincts? Why do we keep clutter?

Many of us hold on to people, objects and thoughts that work against our goals. What is it about the past, or the need to make decisions, that holds us hostage?

Sometimes the clutter we keep stops us from moving forward with an important decision or lifestyle change. The simple act of accounting for the excess matter can make us all a little more self-aware, and that awareness will help us move on with our lives. There is something incredibly liberating about letting things go, no matter the size or its history in our lives.


This week at Life Clubs instead of exploring the nooks and crannies of our minds, we will examine the big piles of clutter occupying the centre of our thoughts, with an end goal of creating space in our lives.

To learn to rely on your gut instinct, click here. You're just one purge away from clearer thinking.

Making Relationships Work

What is the recipe for a good relationship?

Whether we are talking about lovers, friends, family or work relationships, there are certain elements that are necessary to keep things pleasant.

1 spoonful of understanding
1 spoonful of commitment
1 spoonful of love
1 spoonful of friendship
1 spoonful of boundaries

Decorate with compassion and an airy sense of humour.


Would you make any additions, substitutions or changes to this recipe?



You are invited to join Life Clubs Canada this week as we explore the personal and social aspects of being in a variety of relationships. It's time to examine our emotional environments, and to figure out why we sometimes treat strangers with greater courtesy than our loved ones.


To find energy in your relationships, click here.

I Dare You…

What are you really good at? What are you really bad at?

Chances are the answers to those questions will vary depending on whether I ask you or if I ask someone who knows you well. The old adage that we are all our own worst critic is true, though we seldom analyze the criticism that stops us dead in our tracks. Last week we learned about friendships. Now we’re ready to develop the confidence required to make desired changes.

Whether the skill you’re working on is tying a shoelace, cooking a six-course meal, or you’re a professional athlete crusading for a World Cup title, you have to invest time and energy to be successful. Confidence is often overlooked as belonging to a skill set, which keeps a lot of us in the dark.

You are invited to join Life Clubs Canada this week as we explore confidence not as a quality you were either born with or without, but as a learnable skill, and as we dare each other to step out of the safety of being under-confident. It’s time to focus all those negative appraisals into a positive outcome, translating self-perceived weaknesses into lightbulb moments.

To start your own personal revolution, click here. We’ve got some dares in store for you.

Do you know what your values are?

I don't very often get my own Lightbulb Moments when I'm hosting a club, but I did on Wednesday (which was very exciting!)

We were taking it in turns to read through a list of values to see which ones could be ours. I know cleanliness is one of mine... and honesty... and courage... but when we got to the word 'responsibility', that's when the penny dropped.

My home is very messy. I am messy, my husband is messy and all four of my children are phenomenally messy. A typical morning goes like this ... 'Where's my homework diary?'... 'Where's my bus pass?'... 'Where are my trainers?' and on and on and because I'm messy I don't know either.

So I started to think about that word 'responsibility' and what it means.

I know I am absolutely trustworthy. I am one hundred per cent dependable. I am really reliable, but I'm not good at duty or taking on 'roles', such as that of 'tidy mother'.

What's happened, I suddenly realised, is that because I'm not responsible, I haven't passed on 'responsibility' to my children and this is the outcome... chaos.

Gosh, values are helpful. As my diary for Wednesday said 'You grow up the day you have your first real laugh at yourself'. Maybe I've finally grown up. Let's see how responsible I now become.

What do your values tell you?

All my best wishes for a lovely long weekend (if you're in the UK),
Nina
PS You've been wonderful about voting for us in the Barclays competition - do carry on... click here.
PPS Come along to our final day workshop - in Central London on 12th June. It's a Life Clubs Intensive in aid of Marie Curie charity and it's all about you and your wellbeing. The other two were brilliant, I'm sure this one will be too. See you there.

You don't have to get drunk in order to succeed... or do you?

This week's Life Clubs workshop was all about success. I haven't chosen this picture because of David Cameron's success, or even Nick Clegg's for that matter, but keep reading and you'll find out why.

Success is one of those bizarre words (or maybe all words are like this... green, happy, tyre?) that means different things to different people. But one thing most of us seem quite clear about is that you don't really understand success until you've experienced failure.

What's wonderful is that they're often linked.

I remember I used to get really despondent when I failed at something. I felt depressed, beat myself up and generally got into a funk. It took a friend of mine to turn it all around and ask me what I was learning from each failure to get me to see things differently.

Now I relish failure because I can see it as such a helpful learning for what not to do next time. We had a party on Wednesday for members of the HR community and I was running up and down the stairs for more coffee - learning: get a thermos - and on and on it goes.

So, back to the picture. It's all about my son who, in his teens, went out drinking one night and dropped off to sleep on the last bus home. It was a long walk back contemplating his failure, but as he got to Lambeth Bridge and looked at the sun rise over the river (we live near the Houses of Parliament), he thought how beautiful London was and how lucky he was to live here. He found the success in the failure.

Enjoy finding your success. And, I hope you enjoy this Monet. Oh the success to be able to paint like that.

All best,
Nina
PS Our relationships workshop was a wow!!! If you'd like to come to the last workshop in this series - in aid of Marie Curie charity - do let us know now. It's all about YOU and fast booking up.

Screw your way to happiness

I didn't mean to be so provocative, but I was having a great conversation today about happiness (our workshop of the week) and the title just popped into my head.

In our conversation we were talking about how it was little things that make you happy and I was remembering how my 11-year old had just bought the Dr Who Sonic Screwdriver he'd been saving up for.

Of course, he brought it home for someone to help him put the batteries in. They were, needless to say, in the most awkward of positions and we managed to break the battery holder whilst doing it. But the problem was finding the right size screwdriver to undo the screws.

We searched the house high and low and then, there, in (of course) the tool chest, was the tiniest little screwdriver - just the one we wanted.

Happiness was finding that screwdriver.

The person I was telling my story to, replied wisely and said 'Isn't solving a problem what makes you happy?'

So, I'm going to leave you with that thought. What would you say made you happy?

Maybe it's that provocative screw we mentioned before.

All best wishes for a lovely weekend. I'm running a workshop on relationships on Sunday and meeting prospective Hosts on Saturday. What could be better?

If you want to come to the workshop, get in touch (nina@lifeclubs.co.uk).
Nina
Founder Life Clubs